Abstract
Abstract The main objective of this study was to identify the association between combined effect of physical activity, reduction of screen time and overweight in adolescents. The sample of this cross-sectional study consisted of 613 adolescents, aged 15-18 years living in a municipality in northeastern Brazil. Physical activity was measured using the short-version IPAQ (International Physical Activity Questionnaire), and screen time was verified through two questions about the time that, on average, interviewees watched television, played video games, used the cell phone or computer on a normal weekday and one weekend day. The predictive power and cutoff points of screen time and physical activity for the outcome of interest were identified using the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves. Different logistic regression models were proposed, with excess weight as dependent variable. In all models, the combination of little physical activity and long screen time was used as reference. A 95% confidence interval (CI) was used. In boys, the combination of physical activity and short screen time on a weekend day was inversely associated with overweight (OR = 0.31; 0.12-0.85). The combined effect of physical activity and reduced time spent watching TV, computer screen and similar devices on a weekend day is inversely associated with overweight in boys.
Highlights
Physical activity has been widely discussed by the scientific community, especially due to its inverse association with non-communicable chronic diseases (NCDs) in both adults and adolescents[1,2,3].In the early 1990s, in order to create a model of guidance on physical activity for adults, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) published recommendations about physical activity, advising the accumulation of at least 30 minutes of moderate activity on most or every day of the week[4]
It was observed that boys have higher absolute weight and height values, are more physically active and spend more time watching TV, computer screen and similar on the weekend compared to girls
The main studies use the reference of 150 minutes per week as a recommendation for physical activity for health benefits in adults[26] and approximately 60 minutes every day or most days of the week for children and adolescents[5,6,7,8], in our study, we found 137 minutes per week as cutoff point to discriminate overweight in male adolescents, a fact that may reflect the lower level of physical activity found among adolescents involved in the study
Summary
Physical activity has been widely discussed by the scientific community, especially due to its inverse association with non-communicable chronic diseases (NCDs) in both adults and adolescents[1,2,3].In the early 1990s, in order to create a model of guidance on physical activity for adults, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) published recommendations about physical activity, advising the accumulation of at least 30 minutes of moderate activity on most or every day of the week[4]. Physical activity is recommended for approximately 60 minutes every day or most days of the week[5,6,7,8]. There is strong evidence that sedentary behaviors, those related to technology such as watching television, playing mobile or video games, and computer use, i.e., screen time, are important risk factors for metabolic and cardiovascular disorders and need to be investigated as much as levels of physical activity[9,10,11,12,13,14]. In the specific case of children and adolescents, studies have shown that having television in the bedroom and / or remaining sitting watching television for more than two hours / day is positively associated with overweight[16,17], and there is evidence that excessive sitting hours have association with several obesity markers and metabolic / cardiovascular risk[18]
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