Are There Relationships between Perceived and Actual Measures of Physical Fitness and Health for Healthy Young Women?

Abstract

The purposes were to assess the bivariate and multivariate relationships among the subdomains of physical self-concept, self-esteem, and objective measures of physical fi tness in young healthy female graduate students. Nineteen participants were recruited from a local university and completed the Physical Self-Description Questionnaire-Short Form (PSDQ-S) to assess each individual's perceptions of her global physical self-concept, self-esteem, and physical fi tness. Subsequently, a maximal aerobic capacity and muscular strength tests were completed, and moderate and signifi cant correlations were found between these measures and the corresponding subdomains of the PSDQ-S. Multivariate analyses revealed that age and height but not the physical fi tness tests were signifi cant predictors of physical self-concept, while none of the variables predicted self-esteem.Physical fi tness is defi ned as "a set of outcomes or traits that relate to the ability to perform physical activity ( Welk, 2002 ). Musculoskeletal strength, fl exibility, aerobic capacity, body composition, balance, and agility are the main components of physical fi tness. Since physical fi tness is an outcome of regular physical activity participation, understanding of the factors that promote physical activity participation are paramount. Psychological factors such as physical self-concept and self-esteem have demonstrated relationships with physical activity ( Lemoyne, Valois, & Guay, 2015 ). Physical self-concept is defi ned as individual perceptions of competency regarding one's physical abilities and appearance within the various environments that he or she must function in ( Buckworth & Dishman, 2002 ). This construct relates to perceptions of an individual's ability to execute tasks that require one or more of the components of physical fi tness.The literature suggests a bi-directional relationship between psychological moderators such as physical self-concept on physical activity participation, meaning that as physical self-concept increases, so does physical activity participation and vice-versa ( Bouchard, 2000 ). Physical self-concept comprises several subdomains that include muscular strength, endurance, body-fat, and general health ( ( Agarwal, Bhalla, Kaur, & Babbar, 2013 ) and is lower in girls and women as compared to their male counterparts ( d = 1.17) ( Caglar, 2009 ). From the period of late childhood to early adolescence, girls tend to have lower physical self-concept than boys ( Hayes, Crocker, & Kowalski, 1999;Asci, 2002 ). No established relationship has been reported between physical self-concept and physical fi tness for young women. Physical self-concept and physical activity has been shown to be lower in girls than boys and this pattern of reduced physical self-concept and physical activity persists into young adulthood, as many women tend to pursue higher education, enter the workforce, and or have increased family obligations.Physical self-concept is part of a multidimensional hierarchical model of self which posi...

Perceptions of capacity, fatigue, and their psychophysics: Examining construct equivalence and the relationship between actual capacity and perception of capacity during resisted elbow flexion tasks

“…However, this may be due to individuals perceptions of capacity in fact being too conservative; that is they have greater actual capacity remaining than that which they perceive themselves to have. Our results, in agreement with prior work (Bindemann et al, 2014;Brewer & Olson, 2015;Gjestvang et al, 2017;Wisén et al, 2002), suggest that though they are directionally related this relationship between actual capacity and perception of capacity does appear to be 'coarse grained' at best as evidenced by the intercepts largely not matching zero and the slopes, whilst consistently positive, typically being less than one. Indeed, for concentric only and particularly eccentric only conditions participants did appear to report perceiving themselves to have less capacity than they actually had.…”

“…Actual capacity also likely influences perception of effort (Rudner et al, 2012) which would be expected if it is assumed that perceptions of capacity are related to actual capacity; that is to say, there is a psychophysical relationship between them and that when actual capacity is reduced people perceive it as such. However, despite self-reports of perceptions of capacity being directionally associated ordinally with actual capacity, these appear to be rather 'coarse grained' in both physical and cognitive tasks for maximal capacity (Bindemann et al, 2014;Brewer & Olson, 2015;Gjestvang et al, 2017;Moritz et al, 2000;Multon et al, 1991;Paunonen & Hong, 2010;Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998;Wisén et al, 2002) and in predictions of remaining capacity during attempted physical task performance (Armes et al, 2020;Halperin et al, 2022). For this reason it is thought that the similar coarse nature of the relationship between actual effort and perception of effort may be in part related to the lack of congruence between actual capacity and perception of that capacity (Steele, 2020).…”

Integrating self-concept into the relationship between drive for muscularity, and disordered eating and depression, among men.

“…The posited relationships have been explored primarily among samples of women and girls, or mixed-gender samples without analysis by gender (Brewer & Olson, 2015; Dishman, Hales, Almeida, et al, 2006; A. J. Martin, Tipler, Marsh, Richards, & Williams, 2006).…”

What is (perception of) effort? Objective and subjective effort during attempted task performance

“…Examples of the incongruence between representation, the perception of effort 28 , and of what can be said to be objectively happening given that the task is being attempted, the actual effort, are wide. As noted earlier, the Daoist concept of wu wei clearly differentiates the phenomenology from what is actually happening 29 .…”

“…With continued performance of physical tasks, though the perception of effort is often directionally associated with the actual effort required, there is not necessarily a one to one agreement between the two (Steele et al, 2019; Emanuel et al, 2020). In ergonomics and work, directional associations between actual task demands have also been shown for a range of tasks, despite 28 Or at the very least, the 'self-report' behaviour indicating itsee brief discussion of methods of third person phenomenological inquiry in a later section. 29 Though of interest, in modern practice (at least in Chinese bank managers) the application of this concept has been found to be more akin to finding the path of least resistance and thus perhaps seeking out ways to perform tasks such that they require objectively less effort (Xing and Sims, 2012).…”