Contribution Of Light, Moderate And Vigorous Physical Activities In Normal, Overweight And Obese Children Of Porto Region - Portugal

Abstract

Overweight and obesity are characterized by excess body fat resulting from a positive energy balance. There's scientific consensus that physical activity plays an important role in the treatment of overweight and obesity. But is there any difference in the intensities of the physical activity (PA) patterns in the normal, overweight and obese children? Do overweight and obese children spend less time in physical activity at different intensities? PURPOSE The aim was to study the contribution of different intensities of physical activity in normal, overweight and obese children, and the total amount of minutes at different intensities in each of the weight groups. METHODS A random sample of 122 (8–15 years) boys (n, 52; age, 11.13 ± 2.5; weight, 43.5 ± 14.3; height, 146.9 ±15.9; BMI, 19.7 ± 3.7) and girls (n, 70; age, 11.8 ± 2.5; weight, 44.6 ± 14.8; height, 147.9 ±13.5; BMI, 19.9 ± 4.3) was evaluated from Porto region. Body Mass Index (BMI) was calculated from the children's height and weight [weight (Kg)/height2 (m)]. Sexual maturity was determined according to Tanner's. The following measurements were carried out: percentage of fat mass, and PA levels [MTI Actigraphs]. The activity monitor was used as instrument to objectively measure daily PA. The study was conducted during 3 consecutive school days. RESULTS Our results reveal that there's no difference in the percentage of contribution of light, moderate and vigorous PA between groups of normal (90%; 8.7% and 1.0%), overweight (89.3%; 10.3%; 0.4%) and obese (91.4%; 8.5%; 0.1%) boys, but there's a difference among girls, but only in the moderate PA (8.1%; 6.3% and 3.8%, in normal, overweight and obese, respectively; p<0.05). Also in the total amount of minutes spent in each of intensities of PA between the groups of weight there's is only a significant difference in the amount of minutes of moderate PA in girls (normal-65'; overweight-54' and obese-34'; p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS There's a difference in the contribution of PA intensities, and also in the amount of minutes spent between normal, overweight and obese girls, but only in the moderate PA. There's no difference between groups in boys. It might be possible that the problem of overweight in boys be due not only to PA but specially to energy ingestion, whilst in girls the difference in the amount of minutes spent in moderate PA might explain the difference in weight gain. Supported by Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian Proc-48973; 49563