Background The COVID-19 outbreak has affected people’s health worldwide. For college students, web-based physical education is a challenge, as these course are normally offered outdoors. Objective The aim of this study was to use data from a web-based survey to evaluate the relationship between the mental health status of college students and their sports-related lifestyles. Problems related to web-based physical education were also examined. Methods A web-based survey was conducted by snowball sampling from May 8 to 11, 2020. Demographic data, mental health status, and sports-related lifestyles of college students in Wuhan as well as issues related to web-based physical education were collected. Mental health status was assessed by the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21). Results The study included 1607 respondents from 267 cities. The average scores of the DASS-21 subscales (2.46 for depression, 1.48 for anxiety, and 2.59 for stress) were significantly lower in our study than in a previous study (P<.05). Lower DASS-21 scores were significantly correlated with regular exercise, maintaining exercise habits during the outbreak of COVID-19, exercising more than 1 to 2 times a week, exercise duration >1 hour, and >2000 pedometer steps (all P<.05). None of the three forms of web-based physical education was preferred by more than 50% of respondents. Frequent technical problems were confronted by 1087/1607 students (67.6%). Shape-up exercises (846/1607, 52.6%), a designed combination of exercises (710/1607, 44.2%), and Chinese kung fu (559/1607, 34.8%) were suggested sports for web-based physical education. Conclusions Mental status was significantly correlated with regular exercise and sufficient exercise duration. Professional physical guidance is needed for college students in selected sports. Exercises not meeting students’ preferences, frequent technical problems, and the distant interaction involved in web-based physical education were the main problems that should be solved in future.

BACKGROUND Outbreak of COVID-19 has affected the global health. For college students, online physical education was a challenge as an outdoor course. OBJECTIVE The study used data from an online survey to evaluate the relationship of mental health status and exercise status, and the problems of online physical education has been stated as well. METHODS An online survey was conducted by snowball sampling from May 8th to May 11th. Demographic data, mental health status, exercise status of college students in Wuhan and the issues of online physical education were collected. Mental health status was assessed by the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21). RESULTS The study included 1607 respondents from 267 cities. The average scores of DASS-21 were significantly lower in our study (for depression, 2.46; for anxiety, 1.48; for stress, 2.59) than previous study (p<0.05). Lower scores of DASS-21 were significantly correlated with regular exercise, keeping exercise habits during the outbreak of COVID-19, exercising more than 1 to 2 times a week, exercise duration more than 1 hour, steps on pedometer more than 2000, and sleep duration more than 6 hours (p<0.05). None of the 3 forms of the online physical education was supported by more than 50% respondents. Frequent technical problems were confronted by 1087 (67.6%) students. Shape-up exercise (846, 52.6%), designed combination of exercise (710, 44.2%) and Chinese Kungfu (559, 34.8%) were suggested sports for online physical education. CONCLUSIONS The mental status was significantly correlated with regular exercise, sufficient exercise duration and sleep duration. Professional physical guidance was in urgent need for college students in selected sports. Unsatisfied forms, frequent technical problems, and distant interaction of online physical education were the main problems that should be solved in future.