The Relationship Between Physical Fitness and Physical Literacy: Empirical Evidence Linking Two Physical Activity-Health Concepts

Abstract

Research on promoting physical activity (PA) primarily revolves around two key concepts: physical fitness (PF), defined as a set of measurable physical capacities (strength, speed, endurance and coordination), and physical literacy (PL), a multidimensional construct encompassing physical, psychological, social and cognitive dimensions that support lifelong engagement in PA. While both contribute to health outcomes, they are grounded in distinct conceptual paradigms: PF is typically approached from a biophysical and outcome-oriented perspective, focusing on measurable capacities, whereas PL adopts a holistic and process-oriented perspective emphasizing engagement, meaning and lifelong participation. Despite these differences, both constructs are widely mobilized in PA promotion and are often implicitly assumed to be complementary, although their inter-relationship remains poorly understood from an empirical standpoint. This conceptual divergence highlights the need to better understand how these constructs relate to one another. This study examines the associations between PF and PL in children, testing two hypotheses: (1) that overall PF correlates with overall PL, and (2) that specific capacities of physical fitness are linked to distinct dimensions of PL A total of 461 French children (age mean : 7.92 ± 0.65, 49% girls and 51% boys) completed four PF tests (DiagnoformKid®) and self-reported their PL (Physical Literacy in Children Questionnaire). Data were analyzed using two structural equation models A significant positive association was observed between overall PF and global self-reported PL (β = 0.52). At the component level, endurance, strength and speed were significantly associated with the physical dimension of PL (β ranging from 0.11 to 0.22), while strength was also associated with the psychological dimension (β = 0.18). Non-significant associations were found between PF capacities and the social or cognitive dimensions of PL Our Findings provide a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between PF and PL. They suggest that PF and PL are partially overlapping but distinct constructs, interacting in a dimension-specific manner. While some PF capacities are closely related to the physical dimension of PL, their relationship is not uniform across all dimensions, indicating a complementary but non-redundant role in supporting engagement in PA. This highlights the importance of considering both constructs jointly when designing PA promotion strategies.