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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Occupational Health and Safety
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1507066
This article is part of the Research Topic Physical Activity Behavior, Obesity, and Stress as Crucial Sources of Health Issues in Stressful Occupations, Volume II View all 3 articles

Physical Exercise Behavior Characteristics and Influencing Factors for Participation in Police Officers

Provisionally accepted
Yuliang Feng Yuliang Feng 1Chao Chen Chao Chen 2*Yang Liu Yang Liu 3*Sen Li Sen Li 4*
  • 1 Shanghai Police College, Shanghai, China
  • 2 Dalian University, Dalian, Liaoning Province, China
  • 3 Nanchang Normal University, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China
  • 4 Shanghai Lixin University of Accounting and Finance, Shanghai, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The purpose of this study was to analyze police officers' exercise participation behavior and influencing factors in order to better promote physical exercise participation and improve the health status of the police force.Police officers (n=3682) were recruited from 16 district public security substations in a city in eastern China to investigate their physical exercise participation and influencing factors, and logistic regression analysis was used to investigate three aspects: exercise behavior, health cognition, and influencing factors.The physical exercise behavior of police officers showed long duration of time, but low frequency and intensity. The exercise programs were diverse but mainly involved running. The exercise motivation was mainly to keep fit and for stress relief. Logistic regression analysis indicated that source of police entry (OR=1.467, 95% CI: 1.338-1.609), exercise conditions in the workplace (OR=1.069, 95% CI: 1.051-1.088), exercise conditions near home (OR=1.123, 95% CI: 1.047-1.205), high volume physical labor during work resulting in little time for exercise (OR=1.372, 95% CI: 1.038-1.813), lack of organization (OR=1.415, 95% CI: 1.164-1.720), economic condition constraints (OR=1.439, 95% CI: 1.114-1.858), and weather restrictions (OR=2.929, 95% CI: 2.418-3.548) were the main factors influencing police physical exercise behavior.Various influencing factors and the nature of actual police work presented barriers to police officers' participation in physical exercise. Interventions to increase physical exercise participation would promote the physical health of police officers.

    Keywords: Physical Fitness, Exercise, Motivation, Influencing factors, Law Enforcement

    Received: 15 Oct 2024; Accepted: 11 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Feng, Chen, Liu and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Chao Chen, Dalian University, Dalian, 130012, Liaoning Province, China
    Yang Liu, Nanchang Normal University, Nanchang, 330029, Jiangxi Province, China
    Sen Li, Shanghai Lixin University of Accounting and Finance, Shanghai, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.