The relation between subjective health-assessment and cardiorespiratory fitness in adolescents

Introduction: Health perception is a complex issue and determined by various factors. When assessing health there are positive, negative and intermediate measurements, as well as health indicators including the following criteria: subjective, objective and social. Purpose: To determine the relationship between subjective health assessment, physical fitness and cardiorespiratory fitness. Materials and Methods: The study included 1.000 high school adolescents from Poland and Ukraine. Two questionnaires were used in the study: an original questionnaire, and a standardized 20 m shuttle run test with PACER (Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run), enabling indirect assess of VO2 max. Results: Significant differences between subjective health assessment, physical fitness and cardiorespiratory fitness were found. The best health self-assessment and physical fitness, the best cardiorespiratory fitness results were obtained among adolescents. Polish youth better assessed their health in comparison to the peers from Ukraine. Conclusions: There is a relation between subjective health assessment and the objective parameters. When measuring health state of individuals or groups it is worth consider a subjective criterion of health.