Longitudinal changes in Chinese minority college students’ health-related fitness: A multilevel latent growth curve modeling approach

Abstract

Purpose: The study aimed to test the overall changes of health-related fitness (HRF) in minority Chinese college students and to examine HRF differences in gender, race, and year in college. Method: Participants (n = 1320) were minority college students with more than two-thirds females (ie 76.1%), and Hui, Tibetan, and Mongolia consisted of 13.8%, 13.8%, and 11.2%, respectively. Student HRF was tracked for four years. Data were analyzed using multilevel latent growth curve modeling. Results: Muscular strength and endurance were the weakest component in minority college students’ HRF, while body mass index was within the category of “excellent”. Males outperformed female on all components of HRF. Conclusions: It is suggested that interventions concerning minority females’ HRF and muscular strength and endurance for both genders be constructed and tested.

Keywords:

• Health-related fitness
• minority Chinese college students
• tracking changes

Author contributions

Xin Zhang, Shuhua Qu, Xiaofen D. Hamilton, Zach Taylor, Jianmin Guan, Mike Hodges, and Yong Huang conducted the study selection, data extraction, and quality assessment; all authors were involved in drafting and revising the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of China.

Funding

The study was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, No. 1016-XAB18139, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China.