The influence of Mental Health on physical fitness among young children

The decline of physical fitness in children is a currently major problem in Japan and various policies have been carried out by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) to improve the situation. Until now, research on the causes of decline in physical fitness has focused on the relationship between physical fitness and lifestyle. This research, however, is a longitudinal investigation centering on the relationship with mental health, an internal factor that has not yet been studied in depth. In 2001, research was carried out on 454 (236 boys and 218 girls) fifth grade elementary school students in Okinawa Main Island, who took the New Test for Physical Fitness and filled out a Mental Health survey and Lifestyle questionnaire. These three tests were then conducted on the same students one year later following identical procedures. Multiple regression analysis was carried out using the Physical Fitness scores in the 2002 tests as dependent variables. Results showed that girls produced higher subscale scores in the Mental Health tests than boys in both years. Physical fitness scores of 2001 proved to have greater explanatory value than those of 2002, and boys showed significant results for the 'Social Anxiety' and 'Impulsiveness' subscales of the Mental Health test and the 'Sleeping Hours' category of the Lifestyle test. It can be supposed that boys of this age who demonstrate high 'Social Anxiety' will exercise less with friends and thereby produce lower scores in Physical Fitness tests in the following year. There is a necessity to research internal factors other than mental health in the future to deal with the problem of declining physical fitness