Objectively measured physical activity and sedentary time during childhood, adolescence and young adulthood: a cohort study
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BACKGROUND: To know how moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and sedentary time change across lifespan periods is needed for designing successful lifestyle interventions. We aimed to study changes in objectively measured (accelerometry) MVPA and sedentary time from childhood to adolescence and from adolescence to young adulthood. METHODS: Estonian and Swedish participants from the European Youth Heart Study aged 9 and 15 years at baseline (N = 2312) were asked to participate in a second examination 6 (Sweden) to 9/10 (Estonia) years later. 1800 participants with valid accelerometer data were analyzed. RESULTS: MVPA decreased from childhood to adolescence (-1 to -2.5 min/d per year of follow-up, P = 0.01 and <0.001, for girls and boys respectively) and also from adolescence to young adulthood (-0.8 to -2.2 min/d per year, P = 0.02 and <0.001 for girls and boys, respectively). Sedentary time increased from childhood to adolescence (+15 and +20 min/d per year, for girls and boys respectively, P<0.001), with no substantial change from adolescence to young adulthood. Changes in both MVPA and sedentary time were greater in Swedish than in Estonian participants and in boys than in girls. The magnitude of the change observed in sedentary time was 3-6 time larger than the change observed in MVPA. CONCLUSIONS: The decline in MVPA (overall change = 30 min/d) and increase sedentary time (overall change = 2:45 h/d) observed from childhood to adolescence are of concern and might increase the risk of developing obesity and other chronic diseases later in life. These findings substantially contribute to understand how key health-related behaviors (physical activity and sedentary) change across important periods of life.
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The YRBSS items also did not differentiate weekday from weekend day screen-based sedentary behaviors, which may overlook variations in youth's screen time accumulation across the week.
“The YRBSS items also did not differentiate weekday from weekend day screen-based sedentary behaviors, which may overlook variations in youth's screen time accumulation across the week (Ortega et al., 2013).”
From Reciprocal associations between screen time and emotional disorder symptoms during adolescence (2019) · cites this paper as Ortega et al., 2013
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“than girls [6–9] and that physical activity declines and time spent sedentary increases throughout adolescence [10–12].”
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Reciprocal associations between screen time and emotional disorder symptoms during adolescence
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“The YRBSS items also did not differentiate weekday from weekend day screen-based sedentary behaviors, which may overlook variations in youth's screen time accumulation across the week (Ortega et al., 2013).”
BackgroundRiso, E.-M., Kull, M., Mooses, K., Hannus, A., & Jürimäe, J. (2016) · BMC Public Health · doi:10.1186/s12889-016-3000-6 · Cited by 43 · see citing works
- Authors
- Ortega, F. B., Konstabel, K., Pasquali, E., Ruiz, J. R., Hurtig-Wennlöf, A., Mäestu, J., Löf, M., Harro, J., Bellocco, R., Labayen, I., Veidebaum, T., & Sjöström, M.
- Affiliations
- Universidad de Granada (ES)
- National Institute for Health Development (EE)
- European Institute of Oncology (IT)
- University of Tartu (EE)
- Karolinska Institutet (SE)
- University of the Basque Country (ES)
- Corresponding author
- Ortega, Francisco B.
- ORCID
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2013-04-23
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- e60871
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3634054
- OpenAlex
- W2019778278
- Cited by
- 281
- References
- 46
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 26 · 2020: 35 · 2019: 27 · 2018: 32 · 2017: 27 · 2016: 32 · 2015: 29 · 2014: 24 · 2013: 3
- FWCI
- 20.37
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- BOA (University of Milano-Bicocca) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Communities in ADDI (Universidad del Pais Vasco) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Communities in ADDI (University of the Basque Country) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Institutional Repository of the University of Granada (University of Granada) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Hispana (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Eesti Teadusfondi
- Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (RYC‐2011‐09011, RYC-2011, RYC-2010-05957, RYC-2010)
- Stockholms Läns Landsting
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Physical Activity and Health
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Obesity, Physical Activity, Diet
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Context-Aware Activity Recognition Systems
- Keywords
- moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, sedentary time, physical activity decline, childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, sex differences, accelerometer-measured activity, European Youth Heart Study, lifestyle intervention
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Child, Estonia, Female, Humans, Male, Motor Activity, Sweden, Time Factors, Models, Statistical, Cohort Studies, Sex Distribution, Sedentary Behavior, Accelerometry
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