Impaired mental rotation performance in overweight children

Overweight children seem to have cognitive impairment. Since there is a relationship between motor and visual-spatial ability and because of the reduced motor abilities of overweight children we assumed that these children might show an impaired mental rotation performance. Sixteen overweight children (10 years of age) and 16 control children (10 years of age) were matched by age, gender, and socio-economic status. Each participant completed a general intelligence test, a motor test, and a chronometric mental rotation test. The results show differences in both motor ability and mental rotation accuracy. Overweight children made more errors when the rotation task was difficult compared to normal weight children. This study gives a clue to overweight children's problems in spatial cognitive tasks.