Physical activity and self-perceived health status.

OBJECTIVES: Recently more attention has been focused on the impact of physical activity on modification of self-perceived heath status in adults. The objective of the study was to evaluate the level of occupational and non-occupational physical activities and their correlation with self-perceived heath status among economically productive individuals.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Physical activity of the subjects studied was evaluated by the Seven Day Physical Activity Recall (SDPAR) questionnaire among randomly chosen residents of the city of Lódź (n = 598, including 299 women and 299 men). The examination of the subjective health assessment was conducted based on the analogue visual scale.

RESULTS: The multifactorial logistic regression analysis indicated that weekly energy expenditure on occupational physical activity (kcal/week) did not play a significant role in self-perception of health status among men or women. Neither did the outcome of the study provide evidence for the significant effect of housework load on self-perceived health status among the study participants. However, a sufficient level of leisure-time physical activity in a beneficial way affects health-related self-perception of the examined subjects. In the group of men expending 1000 kcal/week or more on leisure-time physical activity, the risk for poor health-related self-report was significantly lower than among men declaring no energy expenditure on this activity (adjusted odds ratio (OR = 0.29, 95% CI: 0.13-0.66). Among females not taking up any recreational physical activity, the risk of low self-perceived health status was also higher than in females reaching a satisfactory level of recreational physical activity (adjusted OR = 0.38, 95% CI: 0.17-0.87).

CONCLUSIONS: Preventive programs aimed at improving subjective health assessment through the increased leisure-time physical activity should be addressed to all economically productive individuals and particularly to people of older age groups and above all to females.