THE ONE MILE RUN/WALK TEST: ASSESSMENT AND INTERPRETATION OF CARDIORESPIRATORY FITNESS AND HEALTH FOR ASIAN COLLEGES

Y. Lee^1,2, M.-W. Tsai², H.-C. Wang¹, Y.-T. Lin¹, I.-J. Chen¹

Background: Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is highly associated with the future morbidity and mortality for young adults. One-mile run/walk is the most common field test used for Asia colleges to assess CRF, and the testing interpretation is usually to present one's completed time and/or to rank the fitness category based on the age- and gender-specific normative reference. These results may remark one's health-related fitness level in CRF but not enough to reflect health-related risk. The criterion-referenced standards, such as FITNESSGRAM system which developed to classify healthy fitness zones by estimating risk for metabolic syndrome, may help enhance the interpretation of fitness test.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the distribution and fitness characteristics of different health risk levels in Asian colleges according to the criterion-referenced standards.

Methods: This was a descriptive study using a secondary analysis. We extracted and analyzed one-mile run/walk test data of 541 aged 18 years male Asian colleges from a university physical fitness database in 2018. Using FITNESSGRAM’s criterion-referenced standards divided students into 3 levels: healthy fitness zones (HFZ), needs improvement zone (NIZ) and needs improvement health risk (NI-health risk). Using normative-percentile standards ranked students into 5 CRF categories: poor, fair, average, good and excellent. One-way ANOVA and Scheffe’s post hoc analysis were performed to examine the difference of the duration of 1MRW, the normative percentile, and body mass index (BMI) among three health risk levels.

Results: It showed that 99.08% of Asian colleges were ranked as the poor and the fair when using normative-referenced standards. There were 70.43%, 13.86%, and 15.71% of students classified into HFZ, NIZ, and NI-health risk, respectively, when using criterion-referenced standards. The significant difference were found in the duration of 1MRW, the normative percentile, and BMI among three health risk levels. Students in the NI-health risk zone had significantly longer duration of 1MRW (11.49±1.78 min, p<0.05), higher BMI (29.59±3.54 kg/m², p<0.05) and lower CRF percentile (6.12±2.82, p<0.05) than students in either HFZ or NIZ groups.

Conclusion(s): There were near 16% male Asian colleges found to be at health risk by using the criterion-referenced standards to interpret the results of the one-mile run/walk test. The characteristics of lower CRF and higher BMI were marked as a health risk. It is suggested that the criterion-referenced standards to interpret one-mile run/walk test could be more informative for health-related risk assessment in Asian colleges. Further studies are also needed to identify the major factors and predicted power for testing interpretation.

Implications: Our results highlighted the importance of interpretation for both fitness status and health risk in a fitness test. It may help recognize one’s fitness status, needs of health promotion, and set goal target of physical education and/or intervention.

Funding, acknowledgements: self-funded research

Keywords: normative-reference, metabolic syndrome, body mass index

Topic: Health promotion & wellbeing/healthy ageing/physical activity

Did this work require ethics approval? No

Institution: China Medical University & Hospital Research Ethics Center

Committee: Central Regional Research Ethics Committee

Reason: The data we collected from the database did not contain any private personal information or any data related privacy risks.