"Chinese Practice" of National Physical Exercise Behaviors in the Era of Great ChangeFrom the Perspective of Age, Period and Cohort

Empirical study was conducted to analyze the multiple interface of Chinese national physical exercise behaviors in social changes. The three-dimension of age, period and cohort find that the cohort trend dominates the changes in the national physical exercise behaviors. The increased level of urbanization, higher education, and social security indirectly stimulate these changes collectively, particularly for the "post-1950s". From the perspective of the period, the level of national participation in physical exercise began to increase in 2010, and gained a rapid development in 2013. In addition to the fact that the overall trend is basically consistent with policy implementation and the cycle for major events, the increase level of national income is an important external force. For the part of an individual's life course, it is common that the level of physical exercise participation gradually decreases with age, but there are two different rate stages in the decline. Furthermore, the changes in national physical exercise behaviors show an inter-generational convergence and differentiation, that is, the "post-1960s", "post-1970s" and "post-1980s" are the main driving forces of urban and rural convergence, while the gender convergence mainly appears in the "post-1950s", "post-1960s" and "early-1970s". Inequality in higher education access may be an important factor that aggravates the expansion of the differentiation trend of the new generation cohort.