Abstract
Over the past few decades, a gradual increase in sedentary lifestyles along with the increased consumption of a modern, hypercaloric diet has resulted in a substantial increase in the number of those classified as overweight or obese in China. The prevalence of overweight and obesity has become a key public health issue. However, it is important to be cautious when interpreting the literature as the majority of studies apply cross-sectional data to assess and subjectively compare the relationship between physical fitness and being overweight and obese. In the present study, longitudinal data were collected from 3066 students (enrolled in 2014) at a university in China at the beginning of each academic year throughout their four-year university program. The aim of this study was to analyze the various associations between BMI, explosive power, flexibility, and cardiorespiratory endurance, and a random-intercept panel model (RIPM) was separately employed on male and female participants to identify between- and within-person variations. In this way, the associations for between-person physical fitness and normal/overweight/obese weight ranges, and for within-person physical fitness and normal/overweight/obese weight ranges could be observed. The results of this study revealed that every physical fitness test chosen for evaluation (such as the standing long jump for explosive power or the distance run for cardiorespiratory endurance) was negatively related to the BMI results, irrespective of sex, with the notable exception of the flexibility results. In addition, this study showed that both males and females exhibited positively correlated results in both between-person BMI and flexibility as well as within-person BMI and flexibility. Furthermore, the relationships between and within persons of cardiorespiratory endurance, explosive power, and flexibility all showed positive correlations across both sexes. The dynamics between physical fitness and BMI identified in this study could prove useful to practitioners and researchers investigating such relationships in the future.
Highlights
Issues related to high numbers of overweight and obese people were once only of concern to the wealthy nations of the world; according to the World Health Organization (WHO), these concerns are becoming more prevalent in poorer countries [1]
Was b = −8.461, β = −0.467, p < 0.01. These results demonstrate that the participants with greater. These results demonstrate that the participants with greater explosive power regularly performed the explosive power regularly performed the running test much more quickly, using less time, running test much more quickly, using less time, demonstrating a greater level of cardiorespiratory demonstrating a greater level of cardiorespiratory endurance
Based on the above results, it can be concluded that there were obvious stages of change in the body mass index (BMI) results of these university students during their time in school; these were probably influenced by the physical education curriculum
Summary
Issues related to high numbers of overweight and obese people were once only of concern to the wealthy nations of the world; according to the World Health Organization (WHO), these concerns are becoming more prevalent in poorer countries [1]. The rate of obesity has grown in all social and age groups over the last 20 years, and it has become a familiar issue in both developed and developing countries [2,3]. Healthcare 2020, 8, 570 improvements in the economy have been accompanied by an increasingly sedentary lifestyle and transformation of diet for many individuals [5,6]. Modern societal demands have proven to have a detrimental effect on overall lifestyle due to added stress, which may further influence an individual’s
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