Association of Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Cognitive Function with Psychological Well-Being in School-Aged Children

Background: Promotion of psychological well-being (PWB) is an emerging social, educational, and health objective, especially for school-aged children. Few studies have examined key correlates and determinants of PWB in school-aged children. This study aimed to examine associations of cardiorespiratory fitness and cognitive function with psychological well-being in school-aged children.

Methods: The study participants were 752 fourth-grade students (mean = 9.61 years, SD = 0.608) recruited from six elementary schools. Students took the Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run test to assess their cardiorespiratory fitness, and the d2 Test of Attention to assess concentration performance, attention span, and attention accuracy. They also completed the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale to assess their psychological well-being (PWB). After removing missing values and outliers from the original data set, the final data set, consisting of 689 cases (370 boys vs. 319 girls), was used for data analysis. Data were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics, bivariate correlation, multiple linear regression models, and independent sample -tests.

Results: The results indicated that cardiorespiratory fitness and cognitive function are significant correlates of PWB ( = -0.069, = 0.161). Further, the results found that cardiorespiratory fitness, concentration performance, attention span, and attention accuracy were significantly collective predictors of psychological well-being ( = 13.299, = 0.000), accounting for 12% of the total variance. Cardiorespiratory fitness was the most significantly individual predictor of PWB ( = 0.174, = 0.000), followed by the attention accuracy ( = -0.090, = 0.031). The Welch's tests revealed that the high-PWB group scored significantly higher than the low-PWB group in cardiorespiratory fitness, concentration performance, and attention accuracy ( = 4.093, = 0.000, Cohen's = 0.310; = 3.340, = 0.001, Cohen's = 0.256; = -2.958, = 0.003, Cohen's = 0.130).

Conclusions: Cardiorespiratory fitness and cognitive function are significant correlates and predictors of PWB among school-aged children. The students with a higher level of psychological well-being showed a higher cardiorespiratory fitness, concentration performance, and attention accuracy compared to the lower level of PWB group.