Of the many wondrous things the human mind can fathom, there are several that cannot be realized when the health and physique of a person are short of optimal. Pushing the limits of one’s body is one of the motivations for physical fitness. This doesn’t happen overnight. It involves commitment, lifestyle change, and regular exercise to achieve the desired health and form. And we need routine assessment during the whole metamorphosis through regular health and physical activity monitoring.
Physical activity questionnaires are essential forms in education and medicine. It helps instructors and medical personnel learn about a student’s lifestyle or an ailing patient’s condition from the information that the person volunteered in the form. It also helps monitor people’s health on a regular basis to assess their health and detect health anomalies early on.
The questionnaires are important in monitoring the activity level of people. We use it to keep our health in check. Teachers and instructors use the forms to know if a certain activity or fitness plan is fit for the class. Medical professionals refer to these forms to know what kind of intervention they would suggest to us. The document allows for follow up and routine check-ups. Employers also require a filled-in and verified copy of these questionnaires to check for our fitness level with a task or profession without harming the company and ourselves during work.
More than those, physical activity questionnaires are also a potent reality check for people to start living healthier and more active lives. By having updated knowledge of the activity level and overall health of the people in the community, we open the doors for further studies on how to improve the public’s health. The intervention policies and programs born from the research will fit the people in the community because these are born from the data these people provided.
The human body wasn’t meant for the sedentary couch potato lifestyle. We evolved from hunting for survival to gatherers who settled down and cultivated our food. We developed tools that made our lives easier. We evolved. However, our idea of progress seemed to have also orchestrated much of our problems.
With an inactive lifestyle, we developed several health problems. Since we don’t need much energy when we’re at rest, the body that is acclimated to inactivity no longer finds the need to have a boosted metabolism. Add our unhealthy diet to this, and we are at risk of heart diseases due to the blockage or the stiffening of the blood vessels, for example. When we no longer work our muscles, they are weaker than the muscles of the more active people. We also have difficulty sustaining long periods of activity because our cardiorespiratory system isn’t accustomed to such work.
The challenge for us is to develop a healthy lifestyle through a balanced diet and becoming more active. We don’t have to pay for a membership to get fit. We can create a fitness schedule or try several workout alternatives that we can do without hitting the gym. We can walk around more or do more chores in the house. The most difficult part is sustaining the momentum when we start choosing to be healthy.
The following are samples of physical activity questionnaires that you can take inspiration from.
For this case, function precedes form. When preparing a health and physical activity questionnaire, take note of the following questions. They will help you tailor the document, so that it is appropriate for what it is intended for.
Before anything, you have to know who will be filling in the questionnaires—knowledgeable instructors and medical personnel or the layperson? Most likely, it can be either. Therefore, the questionnaire’s language should be a compromise of the jargon and colloquial terminology. Vomiting is a common term for describing disgorging of gastrointestinal content through the mouth; emesis, which is its medical term, is not as widely known.
The intention of the questionnaire determines its content. A physical activity questionnaire used for lessons in physical education classes isn’t as comprehensive as those forms for military service recruitment and in clinics. That is why there will be medical conditions or health profile sections that will be present in one form and absent in the other. These sections can include exercise frequency and a specific list of diseases that don’t develop until a person is a lot older.
Generally, medical questionnaires do not have to win style awards. Their purpose is to collect important data on the health and physique of a person. The document serves that function well without elaborate adornments and groovy patterns on the side. But you don’t have to feel as if the questionnaire is dull and lifeless. You can vary the font colors of the headings and subheadings, as long as you keep it consistent throughout the form. You can even choose a different font style, provided that the text is still readable. For readability on screen and paper, choose a sans serif font and keep the color black.
Before you launch the form for mainstream use in the hospital and clinics, you have to test it out on a few people to see if they won’t have difficulty filling in the form. A test run makes sure that no part of the questionnaire will hinder information transmission from the patient to the attending medical personnel. This means that the language is understandable, and the text itself is readable by everyone. The questionnaire also has to be comprehensive because the content gives the physicians clue on what kind of medical intervention to provide the patient with.
Not everyone has the luxury of time to start from scratch. Thankfully, there are hundreds of online resources where you can acquire a handy health assessment template. You can modify the content to suit your needs. What makes templates attractive is that it saves you the time while making your work easier for you. You no longer have to worry about content, format, and designs.
The journey to physical fitness and healthier lifestyle is a laborious one. A well-constructed questionnaire enables consistent monitoring of a person’s progress and helps keep him or her on track. Whether the form is for educators, personal trainers, or medical professionals, it has to serve its purpose efficiently. A functional questionnaire is essential in keeping the public’s health in shape.