Objective. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between different types of daily life physical activity (PA) and physical fitness (PF) and health throughout adulthood.Methods. A total of 723 men and women, aged 28–76 years, participated 1681 times during four measurement points from 1992 to 2010 in this study. We assessed self-reported PA, anthropometrics, physical health status (HS), and PF in each study year. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to analyze the measures.Results. PF and HS worsened with increasing age while sports activity (SA) declined. The modeling showed that sex, age, and SES play important roles concerning PA, PF, and HS. Athletes show higher HS and HF than nonathletes. Habitual activity (HA) also showed a positive relationship with PF and HS, but effects were lower than for SA. Work related activity (WRA) showed no meaningful relationship with PF or HS.Conclusions. Comparable amounts of PA can lead to different effects on PF or HS. Our findings underline the importance of contexts, content, and purposes of PA when health or fitness benefits are addressed. Simply moving your body is not enough.

Zusammenfassung. Die körperliche Fitness steht in vielfältigem Zusammenhang mit spezifischen Erkrankungsrisiken und unterschiedlichen Aspekten der physischen und psychischen Gesundheit. Der Erfassung der körperlichen Fitness kommt daher in der Gesundheitsforschung, insbesondere in Gesundheitssurveys eine bedeutsame Rolle zu. Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit war die Entwicklung eines Fragebogens zur Erfassung des motorischen Funktionsstatus (FFB-Mot). Der FFB-Mot umfasst insgesamt 28 Selbsteinschätzungsfragen zu den motorischen Fähigkeiten Kraft, Ausdauer, Beweglichkeit und Koordination. Den Kern der Skala für Normalpopulationen bilden 20 Items (Standardskala). Weiterhin steht eine 12 Items umfassende Kurzform auch für telefonische Befragungen zur Verfügung. Jeweils vier weitere Items messen die minimale körperliche Leistungsfähigkeit (ADL-Skala) und die sportliche Leistungsfähigkeit (Sport-Skala). Die Skalen wurden mit den Daten zweier unterschiedlicher Validierungsstudien auf ihre psychometrischen Eigenschaften überprüft. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der FFB-Mot in Fragebogenuntersuchungen und Interviews als aussagekräftige Methode zur Selbsteinschätzung der körperlichen Fitness eingesetzt werden kann und dass der FFB-Mot hoch mit Leistungsmessungen zur Fitness korreliert.

Introduction: The development of knowledge and understanding in relation to movement and health is a basic requirement to facilitate lifelong engagement in physical activity with its accompanying possible health benefits. To train teachers in applying adequate strategies, implementation studies have often shown little acceptance of traditional top-down approaches. Thus, the purpose of the Health.edu project was to develop, implement and evaluate effective and feasible measures addressing students' health-related knowledge and understanding (HKU) in physical education (PE) via a participatory approach. Materials and Methods: For evaluation, a controlled pre-post-test study with 233 students from eight different secondary schools in Germany was carried out. Four schools (with two PE teachers at each school) comprised the intervention group and they participated in a 1-year participatory planning process to conceptualize and implement evidence-based PE lessons addressing students' HKU. Control schools carried out their regular PE lessons. Evaluation followed a mixed-methods research design, assessing program implementation via written documentary technique as well as program effectiveness using a standardized questionnaire. Results: Results show a significant intervention effect on students' HKU with a medium effect size. However, due to the participatory process, there were considerable differences between the intervention schools that were involved. Student's HKU improved most in schools where program implementation corresponded to relevant principles of fostering HKU. Discussion: The present study purposefully dispensed with any structured intervention programs for PE teachers to follow. The results show the potential effects of this participatory approach to strengthen student's HKU. However, the participatory planning does not always work in the intended manner, emphasizing that numerous contextual factors influence the implementation process.

Objectives: This study's aims were to describe the development of physical activity, physical fitness (PF), subjective (physical complaints (PC)) and objective (Body mass index (BMI)) health measures and to examine the relationship between the development trajectories. In addition, the study also aimed to assess the influence of sociodemographic determinants (age, sex, socioeconomic status (SES)) in German adults over a period of 18 years. Methods: The longitudinal study population comprises of 721 men and women, aged 33–76 years over the study period. There was self‐report of physical activity and PC and testing of physical fitness and BMI in each study year (1992, 1997, 2002 and 2010). Latent growth curve models were used to analyse the development. Results: Physical activity slightly increased while fitness, PC and BMI worsened over the course of 18 years. Sex, age and SES play important roles concerning physical activity, fitness and health. Several integrative associations could be detected between physical activity, fitness, PC and BMI as well as their trajectories. In particular, high initial levels of physical activity and fitness protect from high PC and BMI.The slope of physical activity was not significantly associated with slopes of fitness, PC and BMI. However, increase of fitness resulted in decrease of PC. Conclusions: A general positive development regarding the amount of physical activity could be detected. However, if it is only an unsystematic increase of physical activity, this is not in itself enough to achieve health benefits. The strengthening of fitness should be focused when increasing physical activity, since only then a health benefit is possible.

Community capacity building is an essential approach for health promotion, combining a participatory approach with the view to community ownership. Little research focuses on practical capacity building strategies and monitoring. Our paper looks into involving stakeholders in facilitated group discussions as a specific strategy for fostering capacity building processes. These processes focused on physical activity (PA) promotion in two German communities (ACTION4men). Along the dimensions of capacity building suggested in literature (e.g., problem solving, resource mobilization, leadership), we implemented two participatory stakeholder groups (1/community). These groups were motivated to develop and implement PA interventions for men >50 years. For measuring capacity building processes, a semi-standardized monitoring instrument was used to document all group meetings. Additionally, we conducted semi-standardized interviews with group participants and drop-outs to capture their perspectives on capacity building. All documents were analyzed using thematic analysis. We successfully established stakeholder groups that planned and implemented a range of local measures meant to increase PA among older men. In one community, the process was sustainable, whereby the group continued to meet regularly over years. Capacity building was successful to a certain degree (e.g., regarding participation, problem assessment, and resource mobilization), but stalled after first meetings. Capacity building processes differed between the two communities in terms of leadership and sustainability. The developed interventions mainly addressed the access to organized sport courses, rather than tackling walkability or active transport. The theoretical capacity building approach was successful to develop and implement programs aimed at promoting PA. The actual capacity building processes depend upon the composition of stakeholder groups and inherent power relations.