Original articles  EPIDEMIOLOGY AND CLINICAL MEDICINE 

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2002 December;42(3):466-71

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Physical activity, musculoskeletal disorders and cardiovascular risk factors in male physical education teachers

Pihl E., Matsin T., Jürimäe T.

Institute of Sport Pedagogy, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

Back­ground. To com­pare the occu­pa­tional and lei­sure-­time phys­ical ­activity (­LTPA) pat­terns, mus­cu­los­kel­etal dis­or­ders and car­di­o­vas­cular dis­ease ­risk fac­tors ­among the phys­ical edu­ca­tion ­teachers (­PETs) and ­their ­fellow ­workers (con­trols).
­Methods. ­Design: a ­case-con­trol ­study. Par­tic­i­pants: 86 ­male ­PETs and 102 ­other ­teachers ­aged 51-72 ­years old. Meas­ures: the ques­tion­naire was ­applied to deter­mine the occu­pa­tional ­activity and ­LTPA ­level, mus­cu­los­kel­etal dis­or­ders, gen­eral ­health ­status and life­style pat­terns. Anthro­po­metric param­e­ters, ­resting ­blood pres­sure ­values, and phys­ical ­working ­capacity ­were meas­ured. Con­cen­tra­tions of ­total cho­les­terol (­CHOL), ­high-den­sity lip­o­pro­tein cho­les­terol (HDL-C), low-den­sity lip­o­pro­tein cho­les­terol, tri­gly­ce­rides and glu­cose ­were deter­mined and the HDL-C/­CHOL ­ratio was cal­cu­lated.
­Results. ­PETs had main­tained ­their phys­i­cally ­active life­style — 59.3% of ­them ­were reg­u­larly ­active in ­their lei­sure ­time. The ­results of the ques­tion­naire did not ­reveal any ­major ­between-­group dif­fer­ences in ­their ­health ­status and ­health ­habits (­smoking, ­alcohol con­sump­tion, etc.). ­PETs had a sig­nif­i­cantly ­lower ­adjusted ­risk of over­weight (OR 0.63, 95% CI, 0.21-0.94), hyper­ten­sion (OR 0.25, 95% CI, 0.13-0.47) and all mus­cu­los­kel­etal dis­or­ders (­during the ­past ­year) (OR 0.52, 95% CI, 0.29-0.94) in com­par­ison ­with the con­trol ­group.
Con­clu­sions. It is rea­son­able to ­assume ­from our ­study ­that ­long-­term phys­ical ­activity is asso­ciated ­with a ­lower ­risk of over­weight, hyper­ten­sion and mus­cu­los­kel­etal dis­or­ders in ­PETs in com­par­ison ­with sed­en­tary ­fellow ­workers.