You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Original research
Physical activity of daily life of Bundeswehr soldiers: a cross-sectional study
  1. Christin Schilz1,2 and
  2. S Sammito2,3
  1. 1 Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Bundeswehr Central Hospital Koblenz, Koblenz, Germany
  2. 2 Department of Occupational Medicine, Medical Faculty, Otto von Guericke Universitat Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany
  3. 3 Section Experimental Aerospace Medicine Research, German Air Force Centre of Aerospace Medicine, Cologne, Germany
  1. Correspondence to LtCol Ass.-Prof. Dr. S Sammito, Section Experimental Aerospace Medicine Research, German Air Force Centre of Aerospace Medicine, 51147 Cologne, Germany; drsammito{at}web.de

Abstract

Introduction Activity of daily life is an important key to maintaining and improving the health status. This is especially important for people in physically demanding jobs, such as firefighters, military and police.

Methods In order to record the actual state of activity of daily life among soldiers, a step count measurement with a pedometer was carried out on 196 soldiers of the German Armed Forces over 7 days and supplemented by a questionnaire on lifestyle factors.

Results The subjects exceeded the recommended 7000–8000 steps per day, with the rank and file moving the least and the commissioned officers the most. It was also striking that the soldiers in the study moved an average of 2600 steps less per day on weekends than on weekdays.

Conclusions Based on these findings, targeted physical activity measures can be established for the identified target groups within the framework of corporate health management in order to ensure the physical fitness of soldiers on routine duty and on deployment.

  • preventive medicine
  • public health
  • occupational & industrial medicine

Data availability statement

Data are available upon reasonable request. The data that support the findings of this study are available from the Federal Ministry of Defense, but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under licence for the current study and are therefore not publicly available. Data are available on reasonable request.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjmilitary-2021-001865

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Data availability statement

    Data are available upon reasonable request. The data that support the findings of this study are available from the Federal Ministry of Defense, but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under licence for the current study and are therefore not publicly available. Data are available on reasonable request.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors SS was responsible for the study protocol and CS for data collection. CS and SS did the statistical evaluation and interpretation of the data. CS was a major contributor in writing the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests Both authors declared that they are active Bundeswehr medical officers and work for the Federal Ministry of Defense.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.