Correlates of change in accelerometer-assessed total sedentary time and prolonged sedentary bouts among older English adults: results from five-year follow-up in the EPIC-Norfolk cohort.

Soren Brage,Nick Wareham,Kate Westgate,Samantha Hajna,Simon J Griffin,Dharani Yerrakalva,Kay-Tee Khaw,Katrien Wijndaele

doi:10.18632/aging.202497

Abstract

Background: Development of effective strategies to reduce sedentary time among older adults necessitates understanding of its determinants but longitudinal studies of this utilising objective measures are scarce.Methods: Among 1536 older adults (≥60 years) in the EPIC-Norfolk study, sedentary time was assessed for seven days at two time-points using accelerometers. We assessed associations of change in total and prolonged bouts of sedentary time (≥ 30 minutes) with change in demographic and behavioural factors using multi-level regression.Results: Over follow-up (5.3±1.9 years), greater increases in total sedentary time were associated with older age, being male, higher rate of increase in BMI, lower rate of increase in gardening (0.5 min/day/yr greater sedentary time per hour/week/yr less gardening, 95% CI 0.1, 1.0), a lower rate of increase in walking (0.2 min/day/yr greater sedentary time per hour/week/yr less walking, 95% CI 0.1, 0.3) and a higher rate of increase in television viewing. Correlates of change in prolonged sedentary bouts were similar.Conclusion: Individuals in specific sub-groups (older, male, higher BMI) and who differentially participate in certain behaviours (less gardening, less walking and more television viewing) but not others increase their sedentary time at a higher rate than others; utilising this information could inform successful intervention content and targeting.

Highlights

Excess sedentary time increases adults’ risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, poor physical function, poor quality of life, and premature mortality. [1,2,3] Time accrued in prolonged sedentary bouts is thought to be harmful. [4,5,6] Describing changes in sedentary time and their correlates will clarify whether older adults have the capacity to change and, if so, to what extent
We found that a greater rate of increase in total sedentary time and/or prolonged bout time was associated with older age, being male, higher body mass index (BMI), higher rate of increase in BMI, urban dwelling, and being classified as non-skilled
While existing interventions have aimed to reduce total sedentary time, we found that time in prolonged sedentary bouts increased

Summary

Introduction

Excess sedentary time increases adults’ risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, poor physical function, poor quality of life, and premature mortality. [1,2,3] Time accrued in prolonged sedentary bouts is thought to be harmful. [4,5,6] Describing changes in sedentary time and their correlates will clarify whether older adults have the capacity to change and, if so, to what extent. [7] It will enable deeper understanding of patterns and correlates of sedentary time, which facilitates greater specificity in intervention development. Studies of sociodemographic correlates have been neglected, despite the fact they may help us specify who we might most usefully target This type of studies has been limited by mostly cross-sectional study designs and the use of self-reported measures of sedentary time [12,13,14,15,16,17], with only a handful of exceptions [18,19,20]. Conclusion: Individuals in specific sub-groups (older, male, higher BMI) and who differentially participate in certain behaviours (less gardening, less walking and more television viewing) but not others increase their sedentary time at a higher rate than others; utilising this information could inform successful intervention content and targeting

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