Assessment of Physical activity Level and Sedentary Behaviour Among Pune City Police Personnel Using Global Physical Activity Questionnaire: A Survey

Abstract

Background: Policemen being an integral part of the law implementation system have long working hours with huge workloads. They may not be able to save time for regular exercise or eat timely healthy meals which may put them at high risk of developing non-communicable diseases like cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, or lifestyle disorders such as obesity. The purpose of this study was to assess their existing physical activity level and sedentary behaviour using Global Physical Activity Questionnaire version 2.0. Objective: To assess the level of physical activity in police officers during work, travel and leisure-time and also determine the sedentary behaviour in them. Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 270 policemen, 168 males and 102 females, from 16 different police station of the Pune city using Global Physical Activity Questionnaire. Along with the analysis of demographic factors, data was analysed to evaluate if the study participants met the criteria for physical activity recommended by WHO. Participants were then divided into different categories depending on their energy expenditure i.e., MET-mins/week. Their sedentary behavior was calculated in terms of hours spent in sitting position. Result: Out of the total study participants, 50.4% were physically active and 49.6% were physically inactive.3.7% study participants were involved in the moderate-intensity physical activity at the workplace; 32.2% study participants were active in travel domain and 54.8%in leisure-time domain.12.2% of study participants were involved in vigorous-intensity physical activity in leisure-time domain only. 134 participants were inactive, 132 were low-active, 4 were moderately-active with not a single participant in highly-active category. The average amount of time spent sitting in the male participants was 6.11 + 3.03 hours whereas in female participants it was 7.50 + 2.62 hours. Conclusion: Even though 50.4% policemen were physically active, most of them were “low- active” and very few were “moderately-active” whereas not a single study participant was found to be “highly-active”. Sedentary behaviour in terms of average amount of time spent sitting was found to be more in female than male participants. Also,51.11% percentage of the study participants belonged to the overweight and obese category. Thus, there is huge scope for improving the physical activity level as well reducing the sedentary behavior in these professionals. KEY WORDS: GPAQ, physical activity, sedentary behavior, police personnel, Pune city.