The relationship between lifestyle and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) has been extensively studied in adults, with evidence indicating that CRF is associated with a lower risk of physical and mental health problems. However, this relationship is still not clearly established for university students and most studies in this area have not explored how the lifestyle can affect cardiorespiratory fitness in the young population. In view of this, understanding how different aspects of lifestyle are associated with ACR can be useful for the development of interventions aimed at promoting the health and well-being of this population.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of lifestyle in the cardiorespiratory fitness in university students.

The research used a quantitative cross-sectional observational method with a sample of 423 university students (64,7% women), with a mean age of 21 ± 4.8 years.To assess lifestyle, the instrument The Short Multidimensional Inventory Lifestyle Evaluation (SMILE-C) was used. Cardiorespiratory fitness was assessed using the 20m Shuttle Run test, which is a valid measure to estimate the ACR in the young population. Statistical analysis was performed using a univariate general linear model to assess the contribution of lifestyle to cardiorespiratory fitness. The significance adopted was p < 0.05. All analysis was performed using JASP Version 0.15 software.

The results showed that lifestyle was not a significant predictor (F (1,421) = 0.02; p = 0.870; R² = 0). Since the assumptions of normality of the residuals and homoscedasticity of the model were not met, the bootstrapping technique was performed with 5000 resamplings. However, the model remained non-significant (B = 0.00, p = 0.86).

This study provides evidence indicating that lifestyle are not associated with cardiorespiratory fitness in university students. However further studies are needed.

The findings of this study can be applied in creating specific intervention programs aimed at improving the cardiorespiratory fitness of university students. In addition, knowledge of these factors can also be used by health professionals to guide and encourage students to adopt a healthier lifestyle, thus improving the health and well-being of this population.