Trends in Physical Fitness and BMI Among Chinese College Students, 2019-2023

Chinese college students' physical fitness and BMI trends from 2019 to 2023, based on five cycles of national survey data. The dataset includes 58,892 students aged 16-21 and constructs a Physical Fitness Index from six components. It was authored by Shucun Sun and last updated in April 2026.

Use Cases

• Analyze temporal trends in thinness, overweight, and obesity prevalence based on the reported annual percentages.
• Model the nonlinear relationship between BMI and Physical Fitness Index based on the described inverted-U pattern.
• Investigate regional health inequalities based on the reported differences in PFI trends between eastern and western provinces.
• Benchmark student fitness levels using the standardized Physical Fitness Index constructed from six physical tests.

Strengths

• Includes 58,892 records from a national survey spanning five years (2019-2023).
• Reports specific annual statistics, such as a decline in thinness from 13% to 8.3% and an increase in overweight/obesity from 21.5% to 28.6%.
• Constructs a composite Physical Fitness Index from six standardized physical test components.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count for the underlying data file is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The primary data file is a DOCX document, which may require extraction to access structured data.

Provenance

Source

Exercise and physical health dataset of college students

Collection Method

Extracted from five cycles of a national survey.

Time Range

2019 to 2023

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-20 05:22:39; freshness should be verified.

Geography

China