The Impact of COVID-19 on Physical Activity Behavior and Well-Being of Canadians
Open accessAbstract
A global pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) resulted in restrictions to daily living for Canadians, including social distancing and closure of city and provincial recreation facilities, national parks and playgrounds. The objective of this study was to assess how these preemptive measures impacted physical activity behaviour and well-being of Canadians. An online survey was utilized to measure participant physical activity behavior, nature exposure, well-being and anxiety levels. Results indicate that while 40.5% of inactive individuals became less active, only 22.4% of active individuals became less active. Comparatively, 33% of inactive individuals became more active while 40.3% of active individuals became more active. There were significant differences in well-being outcomes in the inactive population between those who were more active, the same or less active (p < 0.001) but this was not seen in the active population. Inactive participants who spent more time engaged in outdoor physical activity had lower anxiety than those who spent less time in outdoor physical activity. Public health measures differentially affected Canadians who were active and inactive and physical activity was strongly associated with well-being outcomes in inactive individuals. This suggests that health promoting measures directed towards inactive individuals may be essential to improving well-being.
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Physical activity was strongly associated with a reduced risk of severe COVID-19 complications among infected adults.
“Physical activity was also strongly associated with a reduced risk of severe COVID-19 complications among infected adults [24,25,26].”
From The Effect of Vinyasa Yoga Practice on the Well-Being of Breast-Cancer Patients during COVID-19 Pandemic (2023) · cites this paper as [24]
The Introduction describes a study of Canadians’ physical activity and well-being during pandemic restrictions; the Discussion and Conclusions report associations with mental health and anxiety. No passage addresses infected adults or whether physical activity was associated with a reduced risk of severe COVID-19 complications (searched for infection severity, hospitalization, and complications). (LLM, conf=0.76)
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References 35 · Cited by 783
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- [23]Nielsen L. Reiss D. Motivation and aging: Toward the next generation of behavioral interventions Proceedings of the NIA-BBCSS Expert Meeting, National Research Council of the National Academies Washington, WA, USA 18 July 2012
- Authors
- Lesser, I. A., & Nienhuis, C. P.
- Affiliations
- University of the Fraser Valley (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Lesser, Iris A.
- ORCID
- Lesser, Iris A.
- Venue
- International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Published
- 2020-05-31
- Volume
- 17
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 3899
- ISSN
- 1660-4601 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7312579
- OpenAlex
- W3029698301
- Cited by
- 783
- References
- 35
- Citations by year
- 2026: 16 · 2025: 28 · 2024: 69 · 2023: 115 · 2022: 252 · 2021: 246 · 2020: 56
- FWCI
- 100.57
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- dx.doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Physical Activity and Health
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Urban Green Space and Health
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, physical activity behavior, well-being, anxiety, nature exposure, outdoor physical activity, physical inactivity, social distancing, public health restrictions, Canadian population
- MeSH terms
- Betacoronavirus, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Adult, Age Factors, Aged, Anxiety, Canada, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Pneumonia, Viral, Public Health, Quality of Life, Residence Characteristics, Sex Factors, Social Behavior, Socioeconomic Factors, Exercise, Coronavirus Infections, Pandemics
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