Relationship between health-related fitness and educational and income levels in Spanish women.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to determine whether a relationship exists between health-related fitness, taken as an indicator of regular physical activity, and educational and income levels in adult Spanish women. STUDY DESIGN: Descriptive, correlation, cross-sectional study. METHODS: A stepwise stratification procedure according to population size, age and level of physical activity according to a previous epidemiological survey was used for sampling. Two thousand and thirty-eight women gave their written consent to participate (62.8% of those invited). The final sample consisted of 1709 healthy women (aged 18-88 years). Subjects were categorized into high, medium and low level groups for education and income. All participants were assessed for morphological and physical health-related fitness. Three-way MANCOVA (age as covariate) and Bonferroni's post hoc test were used to determine the differences between groups. RESULTS: No significant relationships were found between age-adjusted educational and income levels. The lowest values for health-related fitness were found in the lowest educational and income groups (P<0.001). The higher the level of education and income, the better the values for all fitness variables (P<0.001), except anterior trunk flexibility. CONCLUSIONS: A positive relationship was found between health-related fitness and educational and income levels, which appeared to be most evident in the lowest educational and income groups. This implies that health-related promotion policies in Spain should stress the importance of regular physical activity in social classes with low levels of education and income.