FACTORS AFFECTING PHYSICAL FITNESS
Before coming to know the affecting factors it is essential to know the importance of physical fitness. Physical fitness plays a significant role for leading a happy and well-balanced life. It is necessary especially for reducing the risk of heart and lung’s diseases.
Many people have a misconception that being physically fit is important only for sports persons because they only participate in vigorous activities. But they aren’t aware that physical fitness is also important for common man too in every walk of life. Infact, Swami Vivekananda also laid stress on physical fitness, he said “Today, we do not need Bhagwat Geeta but Football Fields.”
Now, let’s talk about the factors that usually affect fitness of an individual:
● Stress and Tension
Stress and tension decrease the psychological power of an individual as it has negative effects on fitness. Due to stress and tension, depression, anxiety and sometimes severe mental illness causes.
●Regular Exercise
Regular exercise is one of the important factors which affects your fitness. It simply means that if you exercise daily, the fitness can be improved. If exercises are not performed daily, the level of fitness will decline.
●Heredity
It also plays an important role in affecting physical fitness as it decides the structure of an individual. We all know that slow twitch fibres (red fibres) and fast twitch fibres (white fibres) also depend on heredity. If the percentage of the red fibre is more, the person will have more endurance whereas if the percentage of fast twitch fibre is more the person is likely to have more speed. So, it can be said that heredity affects physical fitness.
●Standard of Living
Standard of living plays an indirect role in influencing the physical fitness of an individual. It has been observed that the people who have lower standard of living, are likely to have less physically fit, as they are not aware of the fitness benefits.
●Diet
Just like the other factors that affect physical fitness, a good diet is not only helpful in maintaining physical fitness but also improves the level of fitness. On the other hand, if the good diet is not taken it will have a negative effect. Along this if the diet is not taken according to the requirement of the body the level of the physical fitness will be decreased.
●Age
Just like heredity, age is also one of the major factors which affect physical fitness. During early age the level of physical fitness remains low due to immaturity. During adulthood the physical fitness reaches the top level as we are much more aware about the benefits of physical fitness. Then later on, with the advancement of the age, the level of physical fitness declines because the muscles and the ligaments cannot bear more force. And, as we are not conscious about our diet, the bones become weak and hence the age has a negative effect on physical fitness in the later part of your life.
● Intoxication
Intoxication such as alcohol and drugs have negative effects on your physical fitness. Specifically, it has a negative effect on the coordinative abilities of the person. Due to the intoxication, persons lose his balance and his nervous system loses its control over the body and due to which the he also loses his self-esteem, self-control and becomes arrogant.