The interrelationship among health behaviors are not clearly understood. We examined health risk behaviors and their relationship to various types of physical activity in an ethnically diverse group of 576 men and women (mean age 24.5±2 yr) at a large urban university. Measures of risk behaviors were obtained by questionnaire, while physical activity was assessed by telephone interview using the Blair Seven Day Recall. Hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted to determine whether health risk behaviors of men and women were associated with physical activity after adjusting for potential demographic confounders, including ethnic status, marital status or employment status. Nineteen risk behavior items were factor analyzed, yielding five risk behavior factors, including tobacco use, drinking and driving, eating fatty foods, lack of healthy foods, and unsafe sex risk scales for men and for women. For men, the regression analyses demonstrated a relationship between physical activity and eating healthy foods (r=0.24, p<0.05), but no association with other risk behaviors, nor was there a relationship between demographic confounders and physical activity. For women, total energy expenditure was related to eating fewer fatty foods (r=0.15), while engaging in vigorous physical activity was associated with eating more healthy foods(r=0.14). Unmarried women were more likely to engage in physical activity than married women (r=0.13), but this finding was not present for men. In addition, European American women participated in more vigorous physical activity than did all other ethnic groups (r=0.13, p<0.01). Physical activity was not strongly related to other health behaviors in this sample of college seniors. Further examination of these relationships is needed to help health promotion professionals design interventions for specific populations.
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