## 4 Discussion  
The aim of this study was to examine the anthropometry and physical fitness of 10-to-12-year-old Qatari male handball players. The main findings of this study were that except for body fat percentage (%BF), all anthropometric parameters were different between age groups. Past studies have shown that large anthropometric dimensions are advantageous in handball [1; 2; 5; 12; 13; 14]. For the physical parameters, jumping, sprinting, and aerobic capacity did not significantly differ between age groups, but we did observe age-related differences in the medicine ball throw. About half of the subjects in this study (18/35, 51%) were overweight. In contrast, no subject had a %BF value below 6%. %BF ranged from 13 to 43%. That 51% of the youth handball players in this study were classified as overweight is startling, as this is more than within the general population in Qatar [26]. The overweight and obesity prevalence among the players in this study was also higher than the global prevalence of obesity and overweight (18%) reported by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2016. Recently, [PERSON] et al. [1] reported that adolescent handball players from the Qatar handball first league presented a %BF of 27.7 \(\pm\) 8.67%, which is considered relatively high for young athletic populations. Due to sedentary lifestyles, the number of overweight adolescents in Qatar is increasing whilst physical activity levels and motor skills are declining [1]. Literature concerning youth handball players is scarce, but some studies have compared the height of these athletes from different levels [14; 27]. In team-handball, body height is important for throwing in offense or blocking in defense, and high body mass was important during one-on-one actions [28]. [PERSON] et al. [29] demonstrated that taller team-handball players with greater body mass can achieve a higher jump throwing ball velocity. The reported mean height of the players at the highest level of competition was 1.76 m (mean age: 14.1 years) [14], 1.57 m (U13) [26], and 1.74 m (U14) [30]. In this study, the mean height of the total handball sample was 1.49 m, which differed from values reported in other studies [14; 27; 30], but these studies investigated different age groups. A limited number of studies have assessed the anthropometric characteristics of youth and adult male handball players [8; 14; 27; 31]. However, comparisons are difficult because of different age ranges and test procedures. For height and body mass, handball players appear to be between volleyball players on the one hand and soccer and field hockey players on the other. Nevertheless, the occurrence of being overweight in our study was unexpected given the average BMI of elite adult handball players. Of our young handball players, 34% (\(n=13\)) showed a BMI \(>\) 25 kg/m\({}^{2}\) and 11% (\(n=5\)) \(>\) 30 kg/m\({}^{2}\). Additionally, the BMI of players participating in our study was 24.3 \(\pm\) 7.22 kg/m\({}^{2}\), which was similar to values reported by other studies [32; 33]. Consequently, the current values of BMI found in our players should not be attributed to sport-specific physiological adaptations. It is unlikely that the high BMI in our study was due to a healthy increase in muscle mass alone, and it might not be without health consequences. The prevalence of being overweight in our sample warrants further investigation to