Abstract
The purposes of this study were to investigate the relationships between physical fitness, life-style and health-status, and to examine the sex differences in the healthy aged living in a community. A total of 890 people aged 60 to 89 years volunteered as subjects. Eleven performance-tests were selected. To assess life-style and health-status, a questionnaire consisting of 40 items was constructed. Cramer's association coefficient was only significant for dinner meal quantity in males and was significant for exercise-habit, intakes of protein, calcium, and vitamin, sleeping hours, and with or without bone fractures and arthritis in females. Multiple correlation coefficients between physical fitness and age-grade, life-style, and health-status were significant for both sexes (males: 0.596, females: 0.556, p<0.01). Partial correlation coefficients were high for aged-grade, sleeping hours, and receiving medical treatment for males, and for aged-grade, bicycle riding, present exercise-enforcement, sleeping hours, and subjective health feeling for females. Physical fitness showed a decreasing trend with age for both sexes. We inferred that sleeping hours and not taking medical treatment for injury and/or illness in males, and enforcement of usual moderate exercise, sleeping hours and consciousness to health in females may be related to the decline of physical fitness.
