Association Between Levels of Physical Activity with Cardiorespiratory Fitness, Fatness and Blood Pressure

Abstract

Children have become less physical activity (PA), expending approximately 600 kcal less than their counterparts 50 years ago. PURPOSE: the objective of this study was to examine the association of different levels of PA with CRF, fatness, systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP). METHODS: The sample of this study comprised 47 boys and 73 girls (11-18 years old) from Porto, Portugal. Measurements included PA (accelerometry) and CRF (20-m shuttle run). Additional measured of SBP, DBP and body fat (sum of 2 skinfold thickness) was conducted. Pearson correlation and multiple regression analyses were carried out to certificated relationships between PA and CRF, fatness, SBP and DBP with sexual maturation, gender and age as covariate. RESULTS: Pearson correlation shown association between very vigorous and vigorous levels of PA with CRF (p=0.00; p=0.00) and moderate and low levels of PA with DBP (p=0.02; p=0.00). Relationship between different levels of PA and SBP and fatness not presented statistically significant results. However CRF was inversely associated with fatness (p=0.00). Linear regression suggested the best predictors of CRF (R2 = 40.6%) in this sample were gender (p=0.00; B=4.66), age (p=0.00; B=4.34) fatness (p=0.00;; B=−4.59) and moderate levels of PA (p=0.02; B=2.30) and for the diastolic blood pressure (R2= 11.5%) were in fact low levels of PA (p=0.03; B=−2.10) and age (p=0.04; B=−2.05) and for systolic blood pressure just sedentary levels of PA (R2= 7.8%) explicate the variance (p=0.00; B=0.29). CONCLUSIONS: the results of this study suggest that the best predictors of CRF were fatness, gender, age and moderate levels of PA. Low levels of PA were associated with elevated levels of SBP, and DBP when consider age of subjects.