Correlates of self-perceived fitness

This paper reports the associations between two global measures of self-perceived fitness and numerous objective fitness and fitness-related measures among 118 British men and women (mean age = 37.9 yr.). Self-perceived fitness, indicated on both a semantic scale of excellent through very poor (I) and an ordinal scale of 1 through 5 (II), was significantly correlated with most fitness and fitness-related variables. For self-perceived fitness I and II, respectively, these included physical work capacity (rho = 0.48 and 0.51), percent body fat (rho = -0.27 and -0.39), grip strength (rho = 0.30 and 0.35), very hard leisure-time physical activity (rho = 0.47 and 0.35), and frequency of sweating (rho = 0.54 and 0.45). Stepwise regression analyses yielded Rs of 0.70 and 0.64 for self-perceived fitness I and II, respectively. A significant correlate of self-perceived fitness was self-perceived health (rho = 0.47), suggesting that people may perceive fitness and health in the same manner. The present data suggest the considerable scope for examining further how people interpret the concept of fitness.