Specifying the levels of physical activity of the academic staff at Firat University

The aim of this study is to specify the level of physical activity of the lecturers at Fırat University. 476 lecturers aged between 28 and 66 who work at different departments at Elazığ Fırat University took part in the study voluntarily. The data in the study was obtained by performing the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) – Short Form. While analyzing the data of the study, arithmetic average, standard deviation and analysis of variance were used. To indicate the differences, One Way Anova, Mann Whitney U and correlation analysis were performed. The obtained findings were statistically tested in p<0.05 level relevance. According to the results of the analyses, it was ascertained that the PA categories of the lecturers are 80,5% inactive, 18,3% minimal active, 1,3% very active. As for academic titles, it was determined that lecturers who have the highest level of PA are associate professors (445,5±594,9MET-min/wk) followed by assistant professors (398,8±559,3 MET-min/wk) and lecturers that have the lowest level of PA are professors (388,4±503,6 MET-min/wk) (p>0,05). As a result, it was determined that the level of PA of the lecturers differ from each other. To enhance the level of PA of the lecturers, it can be said that building facilities that improve physical activity on the university campus and encouraging the lecturers to exercise by telling them how important physical activity is as a sub-branch of a healthy life style and by adding exercises into our lives will help reduce that differentiation. Keywords: Sports, Physical activity, Lecturer, Body-mass index