Evaluation of the relation between physical activity and quality of life in terms of the sustainable development: sample of Antalya and Osmaniye public education centers

This study aims to examine the relationship between the physical activity status of individuals and quality of life of people living in two different cities having different level of development. Physical activity and quality of life, both being the vital components of public health, have been increasingly becoming important. With respect to this issue, in order to make an emphasis on regular pyhsical activity and to increase the quality of life, countries and related associations publish many articles and reports. Physical actiyity has positive impacts on the human health which leads to sustainable quality of life. From this perspective, there reveals a need to invest in human beings. This situation also brings a light on the fact about development. The purpose of this study is to verify that the sustainability of public health may have a relation with pyhsical activity and quality of life so that verification of this relation may lead to evaluation of the situation from the perspective of sustainable development. The knowledge of the exsiting conditions will help to make investments more rationally. This research is designed with descriptive and quantitative basis and sampling of this research consists of a total of 1225 numbers of course attendees of 916 numbers from Antalya and 309 numbers from Osmaniye Public Education Centers which were volunteers to attend to this research. The data have been collected with the surveys namely "International Physical Activity Questionnaire", "SF-36 Scale of Quality of Life" and "Personal Information Form". The Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis H and Chi-Square tests have been used as the descriptive and non-parametric statistical tests. Based on the results of this research, it is found out that there is no difference in the physical activity levels of the two cities and the individuals of both cities are having low level of physical activity. It is also revealed that the scores of quality of life in Antalya is higher in comparison with Osmaniye. Another finding of this research is that the obese individuals and the individuals with the highest health expenditures are the ones having low quality of life. In conclusion, in order to develop a sustainable human health, there should be established a physically more active society and a style of a physically active life should be adopted by the people. It should also be noted that the economical and social development can create a positive difference in the quality of life and accordingly, this will positively affect the future of sustainable development.