Objective: Gender-sensitive approaches to increasing men's physical activity (PA) through sports settings have shown promise across cultural contexts. We examined changes to men's walking and the contribution of walking towards selfreported PA after participating in the men-only European Fans in Training (EuroFIT) programme before exploring men's…

Schools are ideal settings to promote adolescent physical activity (PA), yet school-based interventions have shown limited long-term impact. This position paper presents key issues surrounding school-based PA interventions. Collaborative conceptual thinking drawing on multi-author expertise and available evidence advanced our understanding and…

By promoting physical activities and incorporating them into their community-based programs, Extension professionals are improving the health of individuals, particularly those with limited resources. This article is the second in a three-part series describing the benefits of physical activity for human health: (1) biological health benefits of…

Edmund Peyson Weston's long and remarkable career as the father of walking speaks for the benefits of regular exercise through pedestrian activities and a simple life-style based on a moderate approach to eating and personal habits. (LH)

This article discusses the use of isokinetic and isometric exercise to reduce subcutaneous fat. (JS)

Achieving higher levels of physical fitness has become a goal of many Americans both for personal reasons (e.g., improved health, appearance, and perceived well-being) and for organizational reasons (e.g., corporate cost-savings with healthy employees, operational readiness for the military services). Understanding the factors which have an impact…

The author distinguishes between the terms "physical fitness" and "motor performance," summarizes the health and physical status of adults, surveys the physical fitness status of children, and proposes a lifestyle approach to the development and lifetime maintenance of health and physical fitness. The distinctions between…

American children today are fatter, less fit, and more sedentary than their 1960s counterparts. Teachers mistakenly assume that participation in a general activity program is sufficient to develop and maintain physical fitness. Health-related fitness, defined as optimal functioning of the heart, lungs, and muscles, improves with activities to…

While the relationships between health behavior and health status and between health status and perceived quality of life have received some attention, the association between health behaviors and quality of life has not been determined. The primary objective of this study was to assess the effects of health behaviors on quality of life that are…

This booklet, one in a series entitled "What Research Says to the Teacher," deals with physical fitness. The initial section discusses what physical fitness is and what its characteristics are. Section two details various aspects of physical fitness and its relation to mental health. The remainder of the document discusses briefly the need for…

Explains the benefits of physical exercises to the human body, pointing out that inactivity is the major contributor to the lack of physical fitness in America. Concludes that sugar, which has no nutritional value, is very harmful to the body. (GA)

As individual wages go up, consumers are inclined to spend their leisure time engaging in activities that are more expensive but less physically active and therefore less conducive to good physical health. (JD)

Running is a popular form of exercise which people do for different reasons. Competitive runners (N=99) and noncompetitive runners (N=28) responded to a survey of 10 reasons for running by choosing their most important reasons for running. Subjects also indicated their age, sex, how long they had been running, their average weekly mileage, how…

The increasing popularity of health promotion and lifestyle management techniques call for a careful look at the misuse and costs of suasion, imposition of values as science, social inequities and individual consequences, and biases in communication of health risk information. The application of more systematic cost-benefit analysis is…

The evaluation of a health promotion program indicated that it had successfully used several approaches, including: psychophysical tests, individual health consultants, group programs, mass media, and wellness-oriented social activities. (CJ)