Abstract
Background. Obesity in youth is highly prevalent. Physical activity and diet are influential in obesity development. However, there is a knowledge gap regarding links between activity and diet quality and their combined influence on obesity during adolescence. Objectives. We used five years of data from 2379 adolescent girls in the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute Growth and Health Study to evaluate the association between physical activity and diet quality during adolescence and to assess both as correlates of obesity. Design. Diet, activity, and body composition measures were evaluated pairwise for correlation. A canonical correlation analysis was used to evaluate relationships within and between variable groups. All statistics were examined for trends over time. Results. We found positive correlations between physical activity and diet quality that became stronger with age. Additionally we discovered an age-related decrease in association between obesity correlates and body composition. Conclusion. These results suggest that while health behaviors, like diet and activity, become more closely linked during growth, obesity becomes less influenced by health behaviors and other factors. This should motivate focus on juvenile obesity prevention capitalizing on the pliable framework for establishing healthy diet and physical activity patterns while impact on body composition is greatest.
Highlights
The 2009-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) found United States juvenile obesity (Body Mass Index (BMI) ≥ 95th percentile in BMI-forage growth charts) at 16.9% and adult male/female obesity (BMI ≥ 30) at 35.5%/35.8%, respectively [1, 2]
Spearman’s rho correlations between habitual activity questionnaire (HAQ) and 3d activity diary (AD) scores indicated that the measures were positively correlated with each other at each visit year (P < 0.001), but scores for HAQ had a positive coefficient and scores for 3d AD a negative coefficient for all years in the initial canonical correlation analysis (CCA) results
Data stratification by race revealed racial differences in responses on physical activity questionnaire, so racial interaction variables were added as confounders in the CCA
Summary
The 2009-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) found United States juvenile obesity (Body Mass Index (BMI) ≥ 95th percentile in BMI-forage growth charts) at 16.9% and adult male/female obesity (BMI ≥ 30) at 35.5%/35.8%, respectively [1, 2]. We used five years of data from 2379 adolescent girls in the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute Growth and Health Study to evaluate the association between physical activity and diet quality during adolescence and to assess both as correlates of obesity. These results suggest that while health behaviors, like diet and activity, become more closely linked during growth, obesity becomes less influenced by health behaviors and other factors. This should motivate focus on juvenile obesity prevention capitalizing on the pliable framework for establishing healthy diet and physical activity patterns while impact on body composition is greatest
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