Validity of Self-Reported Physical Fitness and Body Mass Index in a Military Population

Abstract

Many epidemiological studies rely on valid physical fitness data. The purpose of this investigation was to assess the validity of self-reported Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) data and determine whether men and women recall APFT performance differently. U.S. Army soldiers (N = 1,047) completed a survey, including questions on height, weight, and most recent APFT performance. Height, weight, and APFT performance were also obtained from unit records. The mean ± SDs for unit and self-reported push-up repetitions were 63.5 ± 13.1 and 66.3 ± 14.0 for men and 37.7 ± 12.8 and 40.2 ± 12.8 for women, respectively. The mean ± SD for unit- and self-reported sit-up repetitions were 66.3 ± 11.4 and 68.1 ± 12.1 for men and 64.2 ± 13.6 and 66.5 ± 12.9 for women, respectively. The mean ± SD unit- and self-reported 2-mile run times were 15.2 ± 1.8 and 14.9 ± 1.6 minutes for men, and 18.0 ± 2.9 and 17.4 ± 1.9 minutes for women, respectively. Unit- and self-reported body mass indices (BMIs) (calculated by height and weight) were 26.4 ± 3.4 and 26.3 ± 3.6 for men and 24.6 ± 2.8 and 24.2 ± 3.3 for women. Correlations between unit- and self-reported scores for push-ups, sit-ups, 2-mile run, height, weight, and BMI were 0.82, 0.78, 0.85, 0.87, 0.97, and 0.88 for men and 0.86, 0.84, 0.87, 0.78, 0.98, and 0.78 for women, respectively. On average, men and women slightly overreported performance on the APFT and overestimated height, resulting in underestimated BMI. There was no difference in recall ability between men and women (p > 0.05). The very good to excellent correlations (r = 0.78-0.98) between unit- and self-reported scores indicate that self-reported data are valid for capturing physical fitness performance in this population.

Evaluation of Student Injuries at the Sergeants Major Course (SMC), Fort Bliss, Texas, August 2013-May 2014

“…A comparison of self-reported and unit APFT records can be found in Appendix F. Consistent with what has been found in basic training and operational units (Jones SB et al, 2007;Martin et al, 2015), selfreported AFPT results were highly correlated to unit records (Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients range: 0.85-0.90). Given this result, self-reported APFT results were used in subsequent analyses.…”

Musculoskeletal training injury prevention in the U.S. Army: Evolution of the science and the public health approach

“…Provide evidence to validate the use of soldier-recalled APFT and body mass scores as measure of fitness 56,57 Is BMI an appropriate measure for Army soldiers' body composition?…”

The Role of Gender and Physical Performance on Injuries: An Army Study

“…However, prior analyses have shown high correlations (0.71-0.87) between self-reported APFT data. 37,38 Self-reported injuries were broadly defined and the specificity of the severity of injury was not examined in this analysis. This specific light infantry brigade population comprised only 8% women and the small sample size may have had an impact on the result.…”