Research has yielded contradictory results regarding differences in physical fitness and cardiometabolic risk between children and adolescents living in rural and urban areas.

The present study aimed to analyse the moderating role of area of residence on the association of physical fitness and anthropometric parameters in Chilean adolescents.

Cross-sectional analysis of a nationally representative school-based sample from Chile.

A total of 7,833 adolescents with an average age of 15.8±0.7 years participated in both rural (n=759) and urban (n=7,074) settings. Physical fitness tests were evaluated using the Assessing Levels of Physical Activity and Fitness (ALPHA-Fitness) battery and anthropometric variables such as body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC) and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR). Generalised linear models with Gaussian distributions were constructed to estimate moderation models, with anthropometric-related variables as dependent variables, physical fitness variables as independent variables and area of residence as a moderator. Moderation analyses were conducted to examine whether the area of residence influences the association between physical fitness and anthropometric indicators (WC, WHtR and BMI).

In all models, place of residence did not moderate the potential associations between physical fitness and anthropometric indicators; for example, cardiorespiratory fitness with WC (B=0.13, 95% CI 0.05 to 0.31; 0=0.160), WHtR (B=0.08, 95% CI –0.03 to 0.20; p=0.143) or BMI (B=0.08, 95% CI –0.03 to 0.20; p=0.207).

These findings suggest the associations between physical fitness and anthropometric outcomes do not differ significantly between rural and urban adolescents.