Functional fitness, lifestyle and demographic factors as predictors of perceived physical and mental health in older adults: A structural equation model.

Over the past 50 years, socioeconomic development has brought a reduction in birth rates, an increase in life expectancy and consequently in the elderly population. For this reason, there has been an increasing focus on physical and mental health of the elderly, promoting the concept of healthy aging. The aim of this study was to explore the associations between perceived physical and mental health of older adults and a variety of determinants, such as demographic factors, physical functional fitness, physical activity level, adherence to the Mediterranean diet and anthropometric indices, through a structural equation modeling (SEM).

How Does the Amount of a Physical Education Intervention Affect Gross Motor Coordination in Early Childhood?

Little is known about the dose-response of physical education interventions on motor coordination in preschoolers. Our aim was to investigate whether the development of motor skills changed depending on different amounts of a physical education program (PEP) in children aged 3-5 years. One hundred forty-five children were recruited from kindergartens and randomly divided into a control group (CG, = 28), which did not perform any PEP, and two intervention groups, which performed 4 h/week (I1, = 78) and 10 h/week (I2, = 39) of a PEP for 16 weeks.