Associations of meeting 24-h movement guidelines with stress and self-rated health among adults: is meeting more guidelines associated with greater benefits?

Kaja Kastelic,Nika Kastelic,Željko Pedišić,Dean Lipovac,Si-Tong Chen,Nejc Šarabon

doi:10.1186/s12889-021-10979-3

Abstract

BackgroundSeveral countries have recently issued 24-h movement guidelines that include quantitative recommendations for moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), sedentary behaviour (SB), and sleep. This study explored the associations of meeting the 24-h movement guidelines with stress and self-rated health among adults, and whether the likelihood of favourable outcomes increases with the number of guidelines met.MethodsA total of 2476 adults aged 18 years and over completed a questionnaire on their time spent in MVPA, SB and sleep, frequency of stress (never, very rarely, occasionally, often, every day), self-rated health (very good, good, fair, bad, very bad), sociodemographic characteristics, and lifestyle variables.ResultsIn an ordinal logistic regression analysis adjusted for age, sex, body mass index, education, socio-economic status, employment, place of residence, living with or without partner, and smoking, lower odds of higher frequency of stress were found for those meeting the combined 24-h movement guidelines (adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 0.45; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.32, 0.63; p < 0.001), any combination of two guidelines (OR range: 0.48–0.63; p < 0.05 for all), and sleep guideline only (OR = 0.51; 95% CI: 0.35, 0.75; p = 0.001). Higher odds of better self-rated health were found for those meeting the combined 24-h movement guidelines (OR = 2.94; 95% CI: 2.07, 4.19; p < 0.001), combination of MVPA and SB guidelines (OR = 2.33; 95% CI: 1.57, 3.44; p < 0.001), combination of MVPA and sleep guidelines (OR = 1.78; 95% CI: 1.23, 2.59; p = 0.002), and MVPA guideline only (OR = 2.24; 95% CI: 1.50, 3.36; p < 0.001). Meeting more guidelines was associated with greater odds of favourable outcomes (p for linear trend < 0.001).ConclusionAdults who meet the sleep guideline, any combination of two guidelines, or all three guidelines experience stress less frequently. Meeting the MVPA guideline alone or in combination with any other movement behaviour guideline was associated with better self-rated health. The likelihood of less frequent stress and better self-rated health increases with the number of guidelines met. Adults should be encouraged to meet as many movement behaviour guidelines as possible.

Highlights

Several countries have recently issued 24-h movement guidelines that include quantitative recommendations for moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), sedentary behaviour (SB), and sleep
This paradigm was motivated by the findings that sleep, SB, and physical activity are associated with health [7, 8], and that the amounts of time spent in these behaviours are perfectly collinear parts of the 24-h day – more time spent in one movement behaviour inevitably leads to less time spent in the remaining ones
The likelihood of less frequent stress and better self-rated health increases with the number of guidelines met. These findings highlight the importance of encouraging adults to meet as many movement guidelines as possible, while meeting the sleep guideline seems to be important for coping with stress and meeting the MVPA guideline seems to be important for improving selfrated health

Summary

Introduction

Several countries have recently issued 24-h movement guidelines that include quantitative recommendations for moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), sedentary behaviour (SB), and sleep. This study explored the associations of meeting the 24-h movement guidelines with stress and self-rated health among adults, and whether the likelihood of favourable outcomes increases with the number of guidelines met. There has been a recent shift from studying the effects of sleep, sedentary behaviour (SB), and physical activity (i.e. movement behaviours) separately to simultaneously examining the effects of all movement behaviours that occur in a 24-h day [1–6]. Given that the 24-h movement guidelines for adults have recently been issued in several countries, from a public health perspective it is important to explore whether meeting more movement behaviour guidelines is associated with greater benefits. For the purpose of this study, we selected stress and self-rated health as outcome variables, as they have often been explored in relation to movement behaviours

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