DetermInIng the Health-ExercIse/PhysIcal ActIvIty CONSCIOUSNESS Levels of the TurkIsh WOMEN

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the health-exercise/physical activity habits and consciousness level of in Ankara is a member of a public ladies local women’s. For this purpose, an 82-item questionnaire (31 of these items were related with personal information, 51 of them were related with exercise consciousness levels) developed by researchers was given to the womens (n=107). Cronbach Alpha Coefficient of was, .89.

The obtained data was analyzed by using the statistical package in order to get descriptive statistics and also comparison were made in terms of working status. In general womens’ exercise/physical activity consciousness levels were high (x=2.5673)and those levels women’ exercise/physical activity consciousness levels were significantly different in terms of working status (U=1070.0, p<0.05). In fact, carrier women’ exercise/physical activity consciousness levels were higher than housewives.

INTRODUCTION

A healthy lifestyle, being one of the 21st century’s 21 health objectives, involves a simple concept, “Members of society should have adopted a healthy lifestyle by the year 2015”, which emphasizes that “…healthy behaviours concerning physical activity should be considerably increased” (Aktan and  Işık, 2007).

Health was being defined as not being ill in 1940’s, but it was defined by the World Health Organization in 1947 as not only the absence of disease or injury but also physical, social and psychological well-being (Sweeney and  Witmer, 1991). In Turkey, the mortality rates are related to heart diseases (42%) and cancer related diseases (11%) (Koçoğlu, 1998). Thus, the absence of physical activity has caused hypokinetic diseases such as, obesity, high blood pressure, cardio-vascular diseases and diabetes (Heyward, 1991). At the same time, regular exercise has an important role in creating healthy and dynamic societies. For this reason, regular exercise and sports are being scientifically evaluated by all the countries (Epstein et al., 2002).

In the Surgeon General’s “Report on Physical Activity and Health”, inactivity was reported to be more common in women than in men, and more common among the elderly than in younger adults (Ammouri et al., 2007).

“Each person’s response to another is based, in part, on that individual’s impression of the other’s personality, abilities, motives, and other attributes. Thus, people’s outcomes in life depend to an extent on their conveying impressions that lead others to respond in desired ways” (Leary, 1992). The aim of this research was to determine the health-exercise/physical activity habits and consciousness level of in Ankara is a member of a public ladies local women’s.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Subjects

The subjects of the investigation are a total of 107 women who were in Ankara is a member of a public ladies local in 2009. The ages of the women’ ranged from 31 to 40 and over 50.  Personal data about the subjects are given in Table 1.

Collecting Data

Table 1. DetermInIng the Health-ExercIse/PhysIcal ActIvIty CONSCIOUSNESS Levels of the TurkIsh WOMEN

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Health-Exercise/Physical Activity Consciousness Level Questionnaire developed by Tuncel and Tuncel (2009)  was given to the womens (n=107).

The Questionnaire was made up of a total of 82 items, 31 of them related to personal information and 51 of them related to exercise consciousness level. These items related to exercise consciousness levels were appli ed with the responses of “1: no idea, 2: heard of it, 3: I know very well”.

Cronbach alpha internal consistency was used to calculate the reliability of the points of 51 items related to exercise consciousness levels and Cronbach Alpha Coefficient of was, .89. The questionnaire was given to the women personally by the investigators at the public ladies local.

Analysis of Data

The obtained data was analyzed by using the statistical package in order to get descriptive statistics and also comparison were made in terms of working status. Statistical significance was accepted at p< 0.05.

FINDINGS

In this part, data related to physical measurements, nutrition, exercise habits, stress status, age, genderand the comparison related to the working status  are given.
I. DATA RELATED TO PHYSICAL MEASUREMENTS, HABITS AND STRESS STATUS OF THE WOMEN
The results related to physical and physiological measurements of the women are given in Table 2.
As can be seen in Table 2, 107 totally women subjects who responded the questionnaire had an average body weight of 61.18 kg and average height of 162.76 cm. Women’ had an average heart rate of 71.76 beats/min. and an average systolic/diastolic blood pressures of 114.9/73 mmHg. The drink habits of the women are given in Table 3.

Table 2. DetermInIng the Health-ExercIse/PhysIcal ActIvIty CONSCIOUSNESS Levels of the TurkIsh WOMEN

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As can be understood from Table 3, 17.8% of the women drink alcohol, 29.9% of them smoke cigarettes, 71.0% drink coffee, 91.6% drink tea and 23.4% of them drink cola. Nutrition habits of the women are given in Table 4.

Table 3. DetermInIng the Health-ExercIse/PhysIcal ActIvIty CONSCIOUSNESS Levels of the TurkIsh WOMEN

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According to Table 4, 83.2% of the women have regular breakfast, 94.3% of them drink water regularly and 80.4% of them eat fish at least once a week.

On the other hand, 66.4% of them eat fast food type of meal at least once a week and 92.5% of them eat red meat. 43.9% of the women stated that they are over weight and for this reason they exercise and go on a diet.

The results related to their television and computer habits are given in Table 5.

Table 4. DetermInIng the Health-ExercIse/PhysIcal ActIvIty CONSCIOUSNESS Levels of the TurkIsh WOMEN

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51.5% of the women watch television 2-3 hours a day while 59.8% of them use computers 0-2 hour a day. The exercise habits of the women are given in Table 6.

Table 5. DetermInIng the Health-ExercIse/PhysIcal ActIvIty CONSCIOUSNESS Levels of the TurkIsh WOMEN

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Most of the women (88%) stated that they exercise regularly, especially go aerobic (35.1%), fitness-cardio (33.6%) and the duration of exercise is between 46-60 minutes (62.5%). The results related to stress status and stres management methods of the women are given in Tab le 7.

Table 6. DetermInIng the Health-ExercIse/PhysIcal ActIvIty CONSCIOUSNESS Levels of the TurkIsh WOMEN

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Most of the women (53.6%) stated that being a women is stressful and they often feel themselves tense/stressful (50.5%), tired (59.8%) sleepy. On the other hand, 74.8% of them stated that they have stress management strategies, the first of which is social activity.

II. HEALTH-EXERCISE/PHYSİCAL ACTIITY HABITS AND CONSCIOUSNESS LEVELS OF THE WOMEN’ DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS AND COMPARISONS OF THE WORKING STATUS

Descriptive statistics of the women’ health-exercise/physical activity habits and consciousness levels are stated in Table 8.

Except the items  50 and 51, them an of all items are above average. This means that the women are aware of the benefits of exercise/physical activity. As a matter of fact, the consciousness levels of the women related to the be nefits of exercise/physical activity are high (x=2.5673).

Table 7. DetermInIng the Health-ExercIse/PhysIcal ActIvIty CONSCIOUSNESS Levels of the TurkIsh WOMEN

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The health-exercise/physical activity habits and consciousness levels of the women were compared in terms of working status. When the data related to the  health/exercise/ physical activity habits and consciousness levels of the carrier women and housewives are compared, Women’ exercise/physical activity consciousness levels were significantly different in terms of working status (U=1070.0, p<0.05). In fact, carrier women exercise/physical activity consciousness levels were higher than housewives. Mann-Whitney U Test results in terms of department variable are given in Table 9.

Table 8. DetermInIng the Health-ExercIse/PhysIcal ActIvIty CONSCIOUSNESS Levels of the TurkIsh WOMEN

Contenido disponible en el CD Colección Congresos nº 16

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The purpose of this study was to determine the health-exercise/physical activity habits and consciousness level of in Ankara is a member of a public ladies local women’s. It was concluded that 17.8% of the women had alcohol, 29.9% of them smoked cigarettes, 66.4% of them had fast food habits, 92.5% had red meat and 80.4% of them had fish once a week. 43.9% of the woman stated that their body weights were high and they did exercise and go on a diet to lose weight.

37.4% of the women watched television 2-3 hours a day while 59.8% of them spent 0-1 hours with the computer. On the other hand, 83.2% of the women had regular breakfast and exercise and consumed water regularly on daily basis. When the stress status of the womens were examined, it was seen that 59.8% of them felt tired, 50.5% of them felt themselves tense/stressful, and besides that 74.8% of them had strategies to manage stress. In general women’ exercise/physical activity consciousness levels were high (x=2.5673) and those levels Women’ exercise/physical activity consciousness levels were significantly different in terms of working status (U=1070.0, p<0.05). In fact, Carrier women exercise/physical activity consciousness levels were higher than housewives. Basic purpose of exercise is to help people to gain the help of regular exercise.

For that reason to encourage people participate in exercise is very important to become welness. For that reason, all countries significantly evaluated rugular exercise and sports. Basic purpose of exercise is to help people to gain the help of regular exercise. For that reason to encourage people participate in exercise is very important to become welness. . Physical activity can reduce symptoms of depression and, possibly, stress and anxiety (Dunn et al., 2001). It may also confer other psychological and social benefits that affect health. For example, it can help positive self-image among women (Maxwell and Tucker, 1992), and improve the quality of life. For these reasons, all countries significantly evaluated rugular exercise and sports

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