The meanings of physical activity during the life span of Finns

Authors

• Tuomas Zacheus Turun yliopisto

Abstract

The article concerns the importance of different meanings of physical activity during the life span of Finns. The study material was a retrospective enquiry sent to randomly selected Finns, born between 1923 and 1988. 1,490 people responded, representing adequately the Finnish population. With factor analysis, 10 physical activity meanings from 55 propositions were created. These meanings were competition, health / welfare, physical toughness, sociality, relaxation, fashionableness, masculinity, mental growth, lonely slogging and economic affordability. Sociality, health and welfare, relaxation and physical toughness have been the most important meanings of physical activity. On the contrary, masculinity, lonely slogging, fashionableness and competition have been the least important. There were 354 people in the study (born between 1923 and 1944) who were old enough to think back the meanings of their physical activity all the way from youth to retirement age. The value of health and relaxation has increased and the value of competition and masculinity has decreased during their life span.