Abstract
BackgroundAsthma and obesity are highly prevalent in children, and are interrelated resulting in a difficult-to-treat asthma-obesity phenotype. The exact underlying mechanisms of this phenotype remain unclear, but decreased physical activity (PA) could be an important lifestyle factor. We hypothesize that both asthma and overweight/obesity decrease PA levels and interact on PA levels in asthmatic children with overweight/obesity.MethodsSchool-aged children (n = 122) were divided in 4 groups (healthy control, asthma, overweight/obesity and asthma, and overweight/obesity). Children were asked to perform lung function tests and wear an activity monitor for 7 days. PA was determined by: step count, active time, screen time, time spent in organized sports and active transport forms. We used multiple linear regression techniques to investigate whether asthma, body mass index-standard deviation score (BMI-SDS), or the interaction term asthma x BMI-SDS were associated with PA. Additionally, we tested if asthma features (including lung function and medication) were related to PA levels in asthmatic children.ResultsAsthma, BMI-SDS and the interaction between asthma x BMI-SDS were not related to any of the PA variables (p ≥ 0.05). None of the asthma features could predict PA levels (p ≥ 0.05). Less than 1 in 5 children reached the recommended daily step count guidelines of 12,000 steps/day.ConclusionWe found no significant associations between asthma, overweight and PA levels in school-aged children in this study. However, as PA levels were worryingly low, effective PA promotion in school-aged children is necessary.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-016-3600-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Asthma and obesity are highly prevalent in children, and are interrelated resulting in a difficult-to-treat asthma-obesity phenotype
The main finding of our study is that the level of physical activity in all children was alarmingly low, but there was no indication for an interactive effect of overweight/ obesity and an asthma diagnosis on physical activity levels
We could not detect different physical activity (PA) levels in school-aged children with asthma and overweight/obesity compared to peers without asthma and/or overweight/obesity
Summary
Asthma and obesity are highly prevalent in children, and are interrelated resulting in a difficult-to-treat asthma-obesity phenotype. The exact underlying mechanisms of this phenotype remain unclear, but decreased physical activity (PA) could be an important lifestyle factor. We hypothesize that both asthma and overweight/obesity decrease PA levels and interact on PA levels in asthmatic children with overweight/obesity. In both adults and children, a positive association between obesity and asthma is demonstrated (Fig. 1, pathway 1) [1,2,3]. Several studies confirmed that an asthma-obesity phenotype exists, which is dominant among children and middle-aged women [1, 4, 5]. The exact mechanisms that underlie the asthma-obesity phenotype remain unclear. It has been hypothesized that the increased fat mass in obesity causes both mechanical and systemic inflammatory changes which in turn influence breathing mechanisms and airway inflammation [7,8,9]
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