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College students in Japan are restricted from accessing the campus associated with promoting online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic; it would lead to less physical activity and poor relationships with others. Here, we measured 887 college students’ amounts of physical activity, sitting time, self-reported cognitive and affective empathy, and perceived social support before and after easing campus entrance restrictions. The amounts of total activity, vigorous-intensity, and moderate-intensity activity in college students, both male and female, increased after easing restrictions of accessing the campus compared during restrictions. The amounts of walking activity were unchanged. Self-reported cognitive empathy scores significantly increased in female students after mitigating restrictions, but not in males. Furthermore, the total of physical activity’s change amounts was positively correlated with the changes in the scores of affective empathy and perceived family support. In addition, the changes in the score of affective empathy were positively correlated with perceived social help from family, friends, and close people. The current findings imply that increasing physical activity levels after easing restriction of access to the campus would lead to a better quality of life in young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Decreases of direct face-to-face contact during the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic would impair human empathy, an essential skill for maintaining relationships with others. Although physical activity amount relates to empathy, it remains unclear the effects of physical activity on empathy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Four hundred and twenty-six college students’ usual amounts of physical activity and sitting time were measured through monitoring from October to December 2020 with the questionnaire, and subjects were divided into active and inactive groups. Before and after monitoring, cognitive and affective empathy in subjects was evaluated with the questionnaire. Both cognitive and affective empathy scores were unchanged during monitoring in subjects. However, affective empathy’s change rate in the inactive group was higher than that in the active group. Furthermore, affective empathy’s change rate was negatively correlated with sitting time in inactive group subjects, implying that staying at home with a few amounts of physical activity would contribute to treating empathy in young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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