Importance of physical fitness in physical literacy and life satisfaction of Physical Education students

In recent years, research on physical literacy has experienced remarkable growth, identifying the factors in this multidimensional concept that may play a role in the acquisition of healthy habits. In addition, multiple studies have identified significant correlations between physical literacy and quality of life, although they did not find a reason for this relationship. One of the factors that could explain this behavior is physical fitness. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the role of physical fitness and its components in the relationship between physical literacy and life satisfaction. For this purpose, the Mann-Whitney U test was used to analyze the differences in the scores of the questionnaires applied, Spearman's rho, to determine the correlations between physical literacy and life satisfaction, using Hedges' g for the interpretation of the effect size. In addition, a mediation analysis was conducted to understand how physical fitness affects the relationship between literacy and life satisfaction. A moderation analysis was then applied to explore whether variables related to physical fitness modified the correlation and added to the prediction model. Finally, the reliability and validity of the questionnaires were tested using Cronbach's Alpha and McDonald's omega coefficient. The results showed that physical fitness, especially cardiorespiratory fitness, was a moderator and mediator in this relationship, demonstrating that increasing cardiorespiratory fitness enhances the effect of physical literacy on improving life satisfaction among high school students.