The relationship between physical activity levels and life satisfaction of individuals doing regular exercise in sportscenters

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between physical activity levels and life satisfaction of individuals who exercise regularly. Materials and Methods: Volunteers between the ages of 18-40, who regularly exercise at the sports centers in the Aydın province, participated in the study. A total of 375 people were recruited and 17 questionnaires with missing information or errors were excluded from the analysis. Overall 358 questionnaire forms were evaluated for analysis. Personal information form, the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) short form developed by Craig et al. (2003), which the validity and reliability study in Turkey were conducted by Öztürk (2005), and The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) designed by Diener et al. (1985) and adapted into Turkish by Dağlı and Baysal (2016), were used as data collection tools. Results: As a result of the statistical analysis of the study data, there was no statistically significant difference between the physical activity scale and together with all its sub- dimensions of life satisfaction (p>0.05). There were significant differences between physical activity levels and other personal variables. Considering the physical activity levels of the participants according to their gender variables; the vigorous intensity METmin/week and total METmin/week, according to the age variables; the walking METmin/week, for the occupation variable; the vigorous intensity METmin/week, according to the variable of training history, walking METmin/week, vigorous intensity METmin/week and total METmin/week and finally, according to the weekly exercise frequency variable; variables of moderate METmin/week, vigorous intensity METmin/week and total METmin/week have been found significant (p<0.05). Moreover, the life satisfaction levels and personal information of the participants were examined and a statistically significant difference in the variables of profession, education level, income status and type of exercise have been observed (p<0.05). Conclusion: Our study, 54 of the volunteers were inactive, 120 of them were minimally active, and 185 of them were very active and there was no statistically significant difference between physical activity and life satisfaction (p<0.05). Keywords: Exercise, Physical Activity, Life Satisfaction