{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,17]],"date-time":"2026-09-17T06:03:44Z","timestamp":1789625024445,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":16,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,17]],"date-time":"2026-09-17T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1789603200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Public Health"],"abstract":"\n Background<\/jats:title>\n University aerobics is widely offered, but evidence comparing its real-world fitness outcomes with standard physical education (PE) using institutional records is limited. We examined whether enrollment in university aerobics was associated with greater 12-week improvement in health-related physical fitness than enrollment in standard PE and whether attendance was associated with fitness change.<\/jats:p>\n <\/jats:sec>\n \n Methods<\/jats:title>\n \n This retrospective cohort study used PE, attendance, and fitness-testing records for 240 undergraduates (120 aerobics, 120 standard PE), randomly sampled at 30 students per class from eight existing class sections (four aerobics and four standard PE). Week-0 and week-12 post-session measurements of vital capacity, 50-m sprint, sit-and-reach, standing long jump, sex-specific endurance run, and BMI were used to construct a sex-standardized composite fitness\n z<\/jats:italic>\n -score. Between-group differences were estimated using ANCOVA adjusted for baseline outcome value, sex, age, grade year, and baseline BMI (except for BMI), with class-cluster-robust standard errors; wild-cluster bootstrap and random-intercept models were used as sensitivity analyses. Complete-case analyses included 232 students (96.7%).\n <\/jats:p>\n <\/jats:sec>\n \n Results<\/jats:title>\n \n The adjusted follow-up composite fitness score was 0.274 points higher in the aerobics group than in the standard PE group (cluster-robust 95% CI [0.225, 0.323];\n d<\/jats:italic>\n \u202f=\u202f0.40). Cardiorespiratory endurance showed the largest secondary effect (\n d<\/jats:italic>\n \u202f=\u202f0.38), whereas standing long jump (\n d<\/jats:italic>\n \u202f=\u202f0.19), sit-and-reach (\n d<\/jats:italic>\n \u202f=\u202f0.17), 50-m sprint (\n d<\/jats:italic>\n \u202f=\u202f\u22120.15), vital capacity (\n d<\/jats:italic>\n \u202f=\u202f0.10), and BMI (\n d<\/jats:italic>\n \u202f=\u202f\u22120.08) showed small effects. Within the aerobics group, greater attendance was associated with greater composite fitness improvement (\n \u03b2<\/jats:italic>\n \u202f=\u202f0.050 points\/session, 95% CI [0.028, 0.073]), although residual confounding cannot be excluded. No significant interactions by sex or baseline fitness were identified.\n <\/jats:p>\n <\/jats:sec>\n \n Conclusion<\/jats:title>\n Enrollment in the studied aerobics sections was associated with greater fitness improvement than enrollment in the available standard PE sections. Because course enrollment was non-randomized, only eight sections were available, the comparison condition was incompletely characterized, and relevant pre-exposure confounders were unavailable, the findings should be considered hypothesis-generating rather than causal.<\/jats:p>\n <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpubh.2026.1957753","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,17]],"date-time":"2026-09-17T05:32:06Z","timestamp":1789623126000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Association between university aerobics course enrollment and changes in health-related physical fitness among college students: a retrospective cohort study"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"14","author":[{"given":"Jun","family":"Liang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Nanchang Institute of Technology","place":["Jiangxi, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yuanyuan","family":"Ma","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Henan Finance University","place":["Henan, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,17]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"101560","DOI":"10.1016\/j.lanwpc.2025.101560","article-title":"Secular trends in physical fitness and cardiovascular risks among Chinese college students: an analysis of five successive national surveys between 2000 and 2019","volume":"58","author":"Cai","year":"2025","journal-title":"Lancet Reg Health West Pac"},{"key":"ref2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"984511","DOI":"10.3389\/fpubh.2023.984511","article-title":"Trend in health-related physical fitness for Chinese male first-year college students: 2013\u20132019","volume":"11","author":"Dong","year":"2023","journal-title":"Front Public 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