Quantitative evaluation of economic level effects on physical fitness condition among elderly population in Hebei province of China

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of economic level on physical fitness condition among elderly population. Cities with regard to The National Physical Fitness Surveillance in Hebei province were divided into three regions based on variant economic levels. According to the properties of testing indexes and the functional coverage, this study classified test indexes as the body level, the organic tissues level, the cellular/molecular level, and quantitatively compared the differences between these levels. The results showed that the index value differences failed to reach significant level except for the balance ability which was significantly higher for cities with better economy condition than cities at general economic level and the capital city. Findings of this study indicates that the economic difference does not cause the effective stress of physical fitness improvement among elderly population. The complete biological function stress caused by the increased economic level is during plateau stage. In addition, the average BMI value of the elderly in Hebei province presented overweight feature despite of economic level, which should draw more focuses. The quantitative difference evaluation of the threshold point is applicable for health engineering research, but the application in other disciplines needs to be further studied.