Examining the relationship between physical activity levels and happiness levels of college student

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the physical activity and their happiness levels of university students. The relationship between the physical activity and their happiness levels was examined in terms of gender, department studied, perceived academic success, duration of doing sports, purpose of doing sports, monthly income level of the family, general health perception, relationship with people and body mass index variables. A total of 403 students, 235 female and 168 male, studying at Bolu Abant İzzet Baysal University participated in the study voluntarily. In this study, general screening model was used. The short form of the international physical activity questionnaire developed by Craig (2003) and adapted to Turkey by Öztürk (2005) was used in order to determine the physical activity levels of the students participating in the research. The short form of the Oxford happiness scale, developed by Hills and Argyle (2002) and adapted into Turkish by Doğan and Çötok (2011), was used to determine the level of happiness. SPSS 26 package program was used in the statistical analysis of the data. Data analysis was performed using T-Test, Oneway Anova, Pearson correlation and Post Hoc tests. The level of significance was accepted as p>0.05 in all statistical analyzes. At the end of the study, it was concluded that the physical activity levels of university students were different in terms of gender, duration of doing sports, and general health perception; while no difference was detected in terms of the perceived academic success, the purpose of doing sports, the monthly income level of the family, the relationship with people, and the body mass index. In addition, it is concluded that there is a significant difference in the level of happiness of university students in terms of perceived academic success, purpose of doing sports, general health perception, relationship with people and body mass index; however no significant difference was found in terms of gender, department studied, duration of doing sports, and monthly income level of the family. A positively weak relationship was found between the level of physical activity and the total score of happiness. KEYWORDS: Physical activity, Happiness level, University student, Exercise, Sport