PDF(2.7mb) - 國家政策研究基金會

250 Taiwan Development Perspectives 2009
I. Foreword
Physical fitness is a national health indicator in a
country’s competitiveness to which every nation attaches
great importance. Since the turn of this century
industrialized countries have one after another pushed
forward a series of national fitness or health plans
(Chao Li-yuan, 2005), of which the physical fitness
improvement plan has been recognized as an important
indicator as it quite accurately detects physical and
physiological functions, both good and bad. Although
physical fitness is generally attributed to genes, research
has proved that a steady improvement can be
made through environmental factors, one of which is
physical activity. As studies also show that childhood
and adolescence are the two most critical phases in
which individual lifestyle, health behavior and attitude
are shaped and fixed (Ortega, Ruiz, Castillo, and Sjostrom,
2008), many countries are observing and testing
the current status and development trends in physical
fitness for children and adolescents with a view to proposing
further effective plans and measures for improvement.
This article collates the data collected through
physical fitness tests on Taiwan’s children and adolescents
over the past 10 years to analyze the development
trends. Results from the analysis are also used to make
a close comparison with similar information from
neighboring countries.
II. Current Status and Changes in Physical
Fitness for Taiwan’s Children and Adolescents
1. Physical Fitness Test Instrument
According to a definition given by the American
Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and
Dance (AAPHPERD), physical fitness fall under two
categories: health-related physical fitness and performance-related
physical fitness. The former refers to a
need for the survival of human beings in their environment
of living; a requirement that can help maintain
physiological soundness, such as muscle strength and
endurance, cardiovascular functions; and the scope of
free movement in joints. The latter concerns skills for
body performance, such as a certain level of reaction
time in sports, speed, agility, sense of balance, and coordination
of body organs, tissues, and systems. Contents
and test items of physical fitness are different in
different countries and institutions because of different
test methods and viewpoints adopted by researchers.
For example, the American College of Sports Medicine
(ACSM) holds that physical fitness consists of 1) cardiovascular
fitness, or the ability of the heart to infuse
blood and oxygen to all parts of the body; 2) muscle
fitness, or muscle strength and endurance; 3) flexibility,
or the ability to move joints freely; and 4) body components,
or the fat in proportion to the body weight.
Generally, common physical fitness test items are
composed of five categories: namely, muscle strength,
muscle endurance, flexibility, cardiovascular endurance,
and the percentage of the body fat (Tso Chun-chen,
2001). For the convenience of collection of data and
their comparison with other countries, the authors of
this article use the health-related physical fitness test
instrument adopted by the Ministry of Education in
1992 for the implementation of a project calling for the
improvement of the national physical fitness. The instrument
was devised from the 1980 Health-Related
Physical Fitness Test Manual by AAHPERD. According
to this manual, test items comprise body mass index
(BMI), flexibility, muscle endurance, cardiovascular
endurance, and standing long jump. A brief description
of the test items, including their objectives and methods,
is as follows:
(1) BMI: Using figures gained through the body weight
divided by the height square minus BMI as an index
to estimate the body composition, thereby examining
if one is overweight.
(2) Flexibility: Using the distance measured in “sit and
reach” to evaluate the movement range of the back
legs and the lower back joints as well as the level of
being lithe of such tissues as muscle, tendon, and