<p>This paper examines the causal impact of education on health and physical activity behavior by leveraging exogenous variation from the 1997 Turkish compulsory schooling reform, which increased mandatory education from five to eight years. We find that the reform significantly increased the likelihood of completing at least junior high school. While ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates indicate a positive association between education and both health outcomes and physical activity, the instrumental variable (IV) estimates for health are statistically insignificant and imprecise, leaving the effect of education on health inconclusive. In contrast, we find gender-specific effects on physical activity behavior: for males, education has no statistically significant impact, whereas for females, education increases the likelihood of participating in physical activity (extensive margin) but reduces the duration of engagement on weekdays (intensive margin). These findings suggest that while education raises female participation in physical activity, it may simultaneously reduce time spent on it, possibly due to longer working hours, changes in occupational structure, or shifts in preferences toward other health-related behaviors.</p>