Relationship between diet health quality and the level of functional fitness and quality of life among Polish women aged 60.

Background: Healthy lifestyle is a key factor in improving health and quality of life at any stage of ontogenesis.

Objective: The aim of the study was to assess the relationship between of the health quality of diet and the level of functional fitness as well as quality of life among older women.

Material and methods: The study was conducted among 201 women aged 60-85 who signed up for the "Active Healthy Senior" project (at the University of Physical Education in Kraków). In the research, the following were used: 1) Dietary Habits and Nutrition Beliefs Questionnaire (KomPAN); 2) Fullerton Functional Fitness Test; and 3) WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire. Relationships between the variables were evaluated using Spearman's R signed rank correlation coefficients in the IBM SPSS 21 program.

Results: In the study, it was demonstrated that along with an increase in the pro-healthy diet index (pHDI-8), agility increased, and with an increase in the non-healthy diet index (nHDI-8), agility and dynamic balance decreased (p < 0.01). When there was an increase in pHDI-8, the general perception of quality of life and all domains of quality of life: somatic, psychological, social and environmental, increased (p < 0.01). On the other hand, along with the increase of nHDI-8, the psychological domain regarding quality of life experienced a decrease (p < 0.01). However, the strength of the demonstrated relationships was low.

Conclusions: Significant (but weak) correlations were found between the health quality of the diet and indicators of functional fitness and quality of life among older women. Thus, health quality of a diet can be one of the predictors of functional fitness and quality of life in elder women.