A Study of Factors Related to Exercise Behavior in Civil Airmen

Lee, Hyeon Kyeong; Lee, Jung Yuel; Lee, Yong Ho; Yoo, Ji Soo

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to examine factors related to exercise behavior of civil airmen. The subjects for the study were 200 civil airman including pilots, flight officers and flight engineers working for "A" airline in South Korea. The data was collected from April, 1 to 30, 1996 using a questionnaire that was developed for this study, and analyzed using SPSS(Statistical Package for Social Science). The subjects consisted of 200 males. The average age was 42 years old and the majority(82.5%) were married. The large proportion of subjects had received four years of college education or more(86%), and reported having a religion(71%). The average height and weight were 171.7cm and 69.4kg respectively. The average working period and total flight time were 8 years and 6002 hours respectively. Ninety-five percent of sample exercised regularly. As for the frequency of the exercise, 4% of the sample never exercised and 26% of the sample exercised less than once per week, while 44.5% and 24.5% of the sample exercised once or two times, and more than three times per week respectively. The type of exercise was strengthening (30.0%) and aerobic exercise such as jogging(54%), mountain climbing(37.5%) and golf(33.0%). Nearly three fourths of the sample were involved in more than the "light heavy" level of intensity(72.5%) and the average duration was 74.9 minutes. The following factors are related to the exercise behavior. 1) Age and marriage were positively related to exercise behavior(p<.05). 2) The cognitive/perceptual factor is related to exercise behavior. Those who perceived that their health was poor, that health was out of their control exercised less frequently. Also those who showed low self efficacy, and those who valued their health less exercised less frequently. 3) Among environmental factors, social support such as peers, spouse and media influenced exercise behavior. Also the use of a health center was related to a higher level of exercise behavior compared to self-regulated home exercise. Irregular duty was the higher barrier to exercise. 4) The type and intensity of exercise were related to exercise behavior, but not duration. Those who have been jogging or mountain climbing regularly, and those who exercised rather intensely showed a higher frequency of exercise. However, there was no difference in duration 5) The results of stepwise multiple regression analysis showed that the variables which were related to exercise behavior were exercise intensity, exercise place and whether the subject was married. These three factors accounted for 37% of the variance.