The Associations between Physical Activity, Functional Fitness, and Life Satisfaction among Community-Dwelling Older Adults

Shih-Huei Syue, Hui-Fei Yang, Cheng-Wei Wang, Shih-Yu Hung, Pei-Hsuan Lee and Sheng-Yu Fan
Additional contact information
Shih-Huei Syue: Department of Family Medicine, Ditmanson Medical Foundation Chia-Yi Christian Hospital, Chia-Yi 600, Taiwan
Hui-Fei Yang: Department of Community Health, Ditmanson Medical Foundation Chia-Yi Christian Hospital, Chia-Yi 600, Taiwan
Cheng-Wei Wang: Department of Community Health, Ditmanson Medical Foundation Chia-Yi Christian Hospital, Chia-Yi 600, Taiwan
Shih-Yu Hung: Department of Community Health, Ditmanson Medical Foundation Chia-Yi Christian Hospital, Chia-Yi 600, Taiwan
Pei-Hsuan Lee: Department of Community Health, Ditmanson Medical Foundation Chia-Yi Christian Hospital, Chia-Yi 600, Taiwan
Sheng-Yu Fan: Institute of Gerontology, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, No. 1, University Road, Tainan City 701, Taiwan

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 13, 1-9

Abstract: Previous studies showed physical activity had benefits for older adults’ life satisfaction, but the mechanism was unclear. This study aimed to investigate whether older adults with more physical activity had better functional fitness and life satisfaction, and whether functional fitness mediated the relationship between physical activity and life satisfaction. A cross-sectional study design was employed, and 623 older adults (73.71 ± 5.91 years) were recruited. Physical activity, functional fitness, life satisfaction, and demographic characteristics were collected. Compared with older adults with low physical activity, those with high ( B = 0.41, p = 0.025) and moderate ( B = 0.40, p = 0.041) physical activity had better life satisfaction; those with high physical activity had better lower limb muscle strength ( B = 1.71, p = 0.001), upper ( B = 2.91, p = 0.032) and lower ( B = 3.12, p = 0.006) limb flexibility, cardiorespiratory endurance ( B = 6.65, p = 0.008), and dynamic balance ability ( B = −1.12, p < 0.001). Functional fitness did not mediate the relationship between physical activity and life satisfaction. Promoting physical activity may be useful for increasing older adults’ functional fitness and life satisfaction, but the effects on functional fitness only occurred at a high level of physical activity, and the effect of physical activity on life satisfaction was not mediated by functional fitness.

Keywords: mediator; physical exercise; physical fitness; subjective well-being (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/13/8043/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/13/8043/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:13:p:8043-:d:852663

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().