Long-Term Impact of Lifelong Fitness: Examining Longitudinal Exercise Behavior in College Students

Over time, the United States population has gradually shifted to an increasingly inactive lifestyle, and there has been a decline in health behavior. Only 50% of the population meet the recommended guidelines for weekly physical activity. With this glaring increase of inactive lifestyles, programs designed to increase health behavior change have become crucial. One solution to this problem has been a required Lifelong Fitness class at George Fox University where new college students learn knowledge and skills to implement for healthier lifestyles during this transformative time. A multiple regression model predicting long-term exercise by pre-minutes of exercise, post-minutes of exercise, and current exercise self-efficacy was fit to data. The model accounted for 18% of variance shared in all the predictors. When all variables were entered in the model, pre-minutes of exercise and current exercise self-efficacy were significant. There were no significant changes in mean levels of exercise longitudinally, suggesting the course helped students maintain levels of activity, but not increase them