Abstract
This study examined the association of education level with objectively measured physical activity and sedentary time in young adults. Data from the Finnish ESTER study (2009–2011) (n = 538) was used to examine the association between educational attainment and different subcomponents of physical activity and sedentary time measured using hip-worn accelerometers (ActiGraph GT1M) for seven consecutive days. Overall physical activity, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), light-intensity physical activity and sedentary time were calculated separately for weekdays and weekend days. A latent profile analysis was conducted to identify the different profiles of sedentary time and the subcomponents of physical activity. The educational differences in accelerometer-measured physical activity and sedentary time varied according to the subcomponents of physical activity, and between weekdays and weekend days. A high education level was associated with high MVPA during weekdays and weekend days in both sexes, high sedentary time during weekdays in both sexes, and a low amount of light-intensity physical activity during weekdays in males and during weekdays and weekend days in females. The results indicate different challenges related to unhealthy behaviours in young adults with low and high education: low education is associated with a lack of MVPA, whereas high education is associated with a lack of light-intensity physical activity and high sedentary time especially during weekdays.
Highlights
Contemporary data have demonstrated that, on average, adults spend approximately 60–70% of their waking hours involved in sedentary activities [1], which have been consistently associated with an increased risk of chronic disease [2,3,4]
According to the unadjusted analyses, education level was not associated with accelerometer-measured overall physical activity (Fig 1A), but there was a direct educational gradient for the amount of MVPA1 min, MVPA10 min and sedentary time, and an inverse
A higher education level was associated with a higher amount of time spent on MVPA1 min and MVPA10 min, lower light-intensity physical activity and higher sedentary time based on accelerometer-measured physical activity in young adults
Summary
Contemporary data have demonstrated that, on average, adults spend approximately 60–70% of their waking hours involved in sedentary activities [1], which have been consistently associated with an increased risk of chronic disease [2,3,4]. It has been hypothesized that displacing sedentary time with any type of movement, including light-intensity physical activity, may have desirable health effects [5]. Time spent in light-intensity physical activity is beneficially associated with physical health and well-being [6], including favourable cardiometabolic biomarkers [3,7,8]. Variations in physical activity and sedentary behaviour according to educational attainment are important as they may represent a causal pathway by which social inequalities lead to poor health [11]. Studies have shown that moderate-to-vigorous physical activity is more common among highly educated people than those with low levels of education [12,13]. The results on the association between education and sedentary time are inconsistent; some studies have reported that education level is positively associated with sedentary time [17,18,19], while others have not observed such an association [20,21,22]
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