Abstract
BACKGROUND: Post-industrial societies that benefit from the development of science, technology and subsequent inventions that relieve people of everyday duties, have more free time, but face a greater temptation of laziness and limited physical activity. Common diseases increasingly resulting from limited physical activity, which is no longer just a way to spend free time, but a necessity in the field of health care. This necessity obliges us to undertake research that allows for recognizing factors influencing the level of physical activity in individual societies. OBJECTIVE: The conducted research aimed at identifying sociodemographic factors that would determine the level of physical activity in women and men from the Biała Podlaska district in eastern Poland. PARTICIPANTS: The group involved 173 adults (71 women and 102 men) from eastern Poland. METHODS: The presented research was conducted in the years 2018-2020 as part of the international EUPASMOS Plus project. The collected sociodemographic data of the respondents and the results of physical activity monitoring with the use of the GPAQ questionnaire and the RM42 accelerometer - 24/7 allowed for an analysis of the factors determining the physical activity undertaken by the respondents, as well as the comparison of the obtained data with the use of the above-mentioned tools. The statystical analysis involved the use of the Shapiro-Wilk test, Mann-Whitney test and Spearman's rho correlation analysis. The adopted standard significance level of α = 0.05. RESULTS: The results of the research on sociodemographic factors conditioning the physical activity of the examined persons, obtained from the objective tool (Accelerometer RM42) and a subjective one for measuring physical activity (GPAQ questionnaire) showed some discrepancies. However, the established consistency of the research results using the above-mentioned tools allows for formulating the following conclusions: women from the Biała Podlaska district are more active than men. Older people more often undertake PA of lower intensity, giving up high-intensity efforts. The respondents declaring a higher subjective assessment of their health are more physically active. CONCLUSIONS: The results obtained are varied and depend on the used tool. They indicate an enormous importance of the tool used in the study on physical activity.