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Fit for life? Low cardiorespiratory fitness in adolescence is associated with a higher burden of future disability

The burden of disability is an important public health challenge as the majority of people will experience disability throughout their life. Disability includes impairments, activity limitations and participation restrictions, all of which may reduce the capability for work. People with chronic disabilities that limit the ability to work are granted disability pensions in many countries. Therefore, disability pension is informative for health and disease outcomes, as well as for economic consequences.

Previous studies have indicated that obesity as well as low cardiorespiratory fitness and muscular strength already in adolescence are related to later mortality and disease, but few studies have examined corresponding associations for future disability due to all and specific chronic diseases. Thus, we examined the associations of obesity, cardiorespiratory fitness and muscular strength in male adolescents with later disability pension due to all and specific causes in more than 1 million participants through linkage of data from the Swedish conscription registry with other nationwide registries.1–3

Low cardiorespiratory fitness in isolation1 3, or together with low muscular strength2 or obesity1 3, was a strong risk factor for later disability pension due to all and specific causes (eg, psychiatric, musculoskeletal and cardiovascular diseases). Strengths of these previous studies include the large size and representativeness of the study sample (97%–98% of all adolescent males since conscription was mandatory by law during the study years3), the long follow-up (~30 years) and the objective markers of chronic disability (ie, disability pension) and exposures. However, thus far, no actual …