Perceived Versus Actual Health Related Fitness Among College Students

Abstract

Half of all young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 yrs have at least one coronary heart disease risk (CHD) factor significantly increasing their risk for heart disease1. Health-related fitness components are used to measure physical fitness and may facilitate in determining one’s risk for CHD and other hypokinetic diseases. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to compare college students’ perceived health-related fitness and their measured health-related fitness. METHODS: Health related fitness assessments for flexibility, body composition, cardiovascular fitness, muscular strength, and muscular endurance were selected from ACSM’s Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription (8th ed). Participants (n=100; 54 males and 46 females) were asked to complete an electronic questionnaire in which they selected a perceived category for each of the health-related fitness components. Participants then performed the health-related fitness assessments and categorical values were assigned to their fitness test scores. Crosstabs were used to compare actual versus perceived categories of fitness for each assessment and approximate significance was tested using Kendall’s tau-b. RESULTS: There were significant differences (p= .05) between self-perceived and measured categories of fitness for all health-related fitness components. The area with the least amount of agreement between perceived and actual fitness was cardiovascular fitness where only 6% of participants accurately identified their fitness category. Percent body fat and muscular endurance (curl-up test) also had low levels of agreement with only 19% of participants accurately identifying their body fat category and muscular endurance category. Flexibility was the category with the highest level of agreement (33%) between actual and perceived category. CONCLUSION: The results of this study suggest that college students do not accurately perceive their actual health-related fitness compared to their measured fitness. Thinking one is more fit than one is could impact behaviors such as food choice and exercise that increases one’s risk of hypokinetic diseases. 1. Arts, J., Fernandez, M. L., & Lofgren, I. E. (2014). Coronary heart disease risk factors in college students. Advances in Nutrition: An International Review Journal, 5(2), 177-187.