| The present investigation utilized three related studies to: (i) evaluate the effect of participation in an in-house fitness and lifestyle program on selected individual measures of health-related physical fitness, lifestyle behaviours and self-reported health status; (ii) test the relationships between program participation and illness absenteeism; and, (iii) identify the individual measures of health-related physical fitness, lifestyle behaviours and self-reported health status that determine illness absenteeism.;Physical fitness, lifestyle and health data were collected at the time of program entry, and at yearly intervals while membership was maintained and were available for 3,080 members for the period 1981 to 1990. This investigation was restricted to company-classified "illness absences" and data were confined to the period 1986 to 1990 and available for a total of 1,197 employees.;Participation in the fitness and lifestyle program was associated with minimal improvements in physical fitness and had the effect of maintaining "average" levels of fitness, and a possible "protection" from the functional decline normally associated with ageing. During the ten year period of this study, the proportion of program participants at health risk due to obesity reduced by an average 10%, in stark contrast to Canadian population data for the same period, which indicated a secular trend to increased fatness. Program participation was associated with changes in lifestyle behaviours and health status that would be considered in a direction toward positive health.;The present study found no support for the hypothesis that program participation is associated with significantly reduced absence among participants. Rather, the results suggest that illness absence can be explained by length of employment and personal variables alone, and that the degree to which one is active in the workplace fitness and lifestyle program is of little consequence.;The results suggest two explanatory models for illness absence among program participants. The distinguishing characteristic being whether employees who dropped out of the program within their first year of membership were included or omitted from the analyses. The major influence was on the significance of leisure time physical activity as a predictor of sick time usage. With dropouts included in the model, leisure time physical activity entered as a significant predictor.;As a group of covariates, personal characteristics accounted for the greatest variance in illness absenteeism, with smoking and marital breakdown as the most important predictors. Physical fitness variables, with the exception of flexibility, failed to achieve significance. Fitness and lifestyle program participation failed to predict illness absence, due, in part, to the lack of differences in annual absence rates between program members and non-members.;The positive association between length of program participation and illness absence was the result of an association between length of service at Esso and absence, and not program participation, per se. This conclusion arises from the lack of any difference between program members and non-members in annual rates of sick leave usage.;It was concluded that program participation was associated with positive changes and the maintenance of fitness, lifestyle and health. Program participation per se was not associated with rates of illness absence, though personal characteristics which included the amount of leisure time physical activity were significant predictors of illness absence. |
