An Investigation of the ‘Physical Condition Scale’ in the “Self-Awareness Score”

Abstract

Throughout the many years of gymnastic exercise class instructions, our aim has been to enable subjects to acquire the ability to manage their own health, based on the idea that one should take responsibility for maintaining one′s own health. We believe, as stated by Kawamorita et al., that the ability to self-manage health entails being able to comprehend one′s mental and physical conditions and to practice healthy behaviors in a self-directed manner. We believe that in putting these healthy behaviors into practice, it is important for subjects to be able to ascertain changes in their mental and physical conditions within their day-to-day activities. This act of ascertaining one′s mental and physical conditions is what we have termed “self-awareness”, and we have developed the “Self-Awareness Score” as a scale to monitor changes in the subject′s conditions. We positioned the “Self-Awareness Score” as a scale to monitor any changes in mental and physical conditions resulting from gymnastic exercise. The scale is separated into two factors, the mental condition and the physical condition, and its purpose is to provide a way to visualize and understand subjective evaluations.The purpose of this round of research was to focus on and investigate the physical condition scale of the “Self-Awareness Score” by utilizing physical strength and fitness tests, step count recording, and a questionnaire regarding changes in mental and physical conditions. The subjects of the research were attendees of the Health Promotion courses in the Center forLifelong Learning and Extension Programs at the Shibaura Institute of Technology. The group (all residents of Saitama City) comprised 4 males and 11 females for a total of 15 people. The average age of the males was 53.5 years old, 50.5 years old for females and the group average was 51.3 years old (±11.6). In the period from October 13th through November 17th 2007, in addition to lectures on exercising, a total of five classes were implemented, each comprising approximately 90 minutes of gymnastic exercises.The results of this round of research showed no significant differences in the mean values of the measurements taken before and after the course between the “Self-Awareness Score” physical condition scale and each of the following items: physical strength and fitness tests, step count recordings, and results in the questionnaire on changes in mental and physical conditions. No correlation between the above items was found as well. This suggests that there is no relationship between the physical condition scale and the measured items.On the other hand, the results from the questionnaire regarding changes in mental and physical conditions and the “Self-Awareness Scores” showed that subjects both actually felt and became aware of changes in their mental and physical conditions. From this, we believe that through self-awareness, subjects were able to comprehend their mental and physical conditions, and that this can lead to the subjects acquiring the ability to manage their own health.