The effect of college students’ school sports policy attitudes on physical quality: the mediating role of physical exercise and gender difference

China has introduced a high-level school sports policy to solve the major educational problem of the continuous decline of young people’s physical health. The attitude of students has a significant impact on the effectiveness of policy implementation. The purpose of this paper is to explore the mechanism of the effect of students’ school sports policy attitudes on physical quality to provide a reference for improving students’ physical health and promoting the implementation effect of school sports policy. A total of 2676 college students in China voluntarily participated in the survey. Pearson correlation analysis showed that there is a significant positive correlation among college students’ school sports policy attitudes, physical quality, and physical exercise ( τ = 0.083–0.127, p