From active play to sedentary lifestyles: understanding the decline in physical activity from childhood through adolescence—a systematic review

Addressing Racial/Ethnic Differences in Age-Related Declines in Physical Activity During Adolescence

Physical Activity in Adolescents: From Associations to Interventions

Physical activity and health

Background and AimsThe COVID‐19 pandemic and the resultant change in sedentary behaviors have had immense health, economic, and social implications globally. As governments worldwide imposed lockdowns and curfews, the amount of time spent indoors greatly increased. This lead to a dramatic change in physical activity (PA) levels and profound consequences on daily routines. Our study aimed to investigate patterns of PA during the COVID‐19 pandemic among adults residing in Saudi Arabia.MethodsThis cross‐sectional survey‐based study aimed to investigate patterns of PA during the COVID‐19 pandemic among adults residing in Saudi Arabia. The International Physical Activity Questionnaire was utilized to measure participants' PA levels between April 2021 and May 2021. Participants were then classified into three groups according to their PA level, and their PA levels and sedentary behaviors were analyzed.ResultsWe surveyed 463 participants, 315 (68%) of which were female and 134 (32%) of which were male with a median age of 23 (interquartile range, 21–35) years. Moderate‐to‐high PA was reported by 257 (55.7%) of the participants. There was a significant decrease in PA during the COVID‐19 pandemic and resultant lockdowns among the participants (p = 0.04), with higher rates of sedentary behavior among males than females (p = 0.14).ConclusionsThe decline in PA is a profound challenge of the COVID‐19 pandemic that needs to be addressed by health practitioners and policymakers. Our study highlights the decline in PA levels seen during the COVID‐19 pandemic and the importance of promotional programs and interventions to increase PA among the Saudi Arabian population without compromising the essential health restrictions and social distancing.

The research assessed the level of physical activity (PA) of boys and girls aged 11-14, as well as trends in PA levels. The sample included a total of 433 children aged 11-14, comprising 238 boys and 195 girls. PA was assessed using the FELS questionnaire, which included questions about the frequency of PA in sports, PA during leisure time, PA at home, and overall PA. To determine the trend in PA levels across specific domains and overall, trend analysis was applied, followed by comparisons using the LSD Post Hoc Test. Data were processed using the SPSS statistical package (p < .05). The results showed that boys had significantly higher levels of PA across all periods compared to girls. Significant changes in PA levels among boys were observed in the domain of PA in sports (Sig. = < .001) and overall PA (Sig. = .008). A significant decline in PA in sports among boys was noted between the ages of 11 and 13, as well as between 11 and 14 years, while the decline in overall PA was observed between the ages of 11 and 13. Among girls, a decline in PA in the domain of household chores was identified between the ages of 11 and 14. In the domain of overall PA, significant decreases were observed between the ages of 11 and 13, 11 and 14, 12 and 13, and 12 and 14. It was found that PA among children aged 11-14 significantly decreases around the ages of 12 and 13. Efforts should focus on promoting PA within this population group and identifying appropriate strategies to increase or at least maintain PA levels during this critical period.

Skeletal Muscle Weakness: A Novel Treatable Trait in Asthma?

Physical activity in the prevention and treatment of obesity and its comorbidities: evidence report of independent panel to assess the role of physical activity in the treatment of obesity and its comorbidities.

BackgroundA consistent finding in the literature is the decline in physical activity during adolescence, resulting in activity levels below the recommended guidelines. Therefore, promotion of physical activity is recommended specifically for prevocational students.ObjectiveThis protocol paper describes the background and design of a physical activity promotion intervention study in which prevocational students are invited to participate in the design and implementation of an intervention mix. The intervention is expected to prevent a decline in physical activity in the target group.MethodsThe effectiveness of the intervention was evaluated in a two-group cluster randomized controlled trial with assessments at baseline and 2-year follow-up. A simple randomization was applied, allocating 11 schools to the intervention group and 11 schools to the control group, which followed the regular school curriculum. The research population consisted of 3003 prevocational students, aged 13-15 years. The primary outcome measures were self-reported physical activity levels (screen time, active commuting, and physical activity). As a secondary outcome, direct assessment of physical fitness (leg strength, arm strength, hip flexibility, hand speed, abdominal muscle strength, BMI, and body composition) was included. An intervention-control group comparison was presented for the baseline results. The 2-year interventions began by mapping the assets of the prevocational adolescents of each intervention school using motivational interviewing in the structured interview matrix and the photovoice method. In addition, during focus group sessions, students, school employees, and researchers cocreated and implemented an intervention plan that optimally met the students’ assets and opportunities in the school context. The degree of student participation was evaluated through interviews and questionnaires.ResultsData collection of the SALVO (stimulating an active lifestyle in prevocational students) study began in October 2015 and was completed in December 2017. Data analyses will be completed in 2021. Baseline comparisons between the intervention and control groups were not significant for age (P=.12), screen time behavior (P=.53), nonschool active commuting (P=.26), total time spent on sports activities (P=.32), total physical activities (P=.11), hip flexibility (P=.22), maximum handgrip (P=.47), BMI (P=.44), and sum of skinfolds (P=.29). Significant differences between the intervention and control groups were found in ethnicity, gender, active commuting to school (P=.03), standing broad jump (P=.02), bent arm hang (P=.01), 10× 5-m sprint (P=.01), plate tapping (P=.01), sit-ups (P=.01), and 20-m shuttle run (P=.01).ConclusionsThe SALVO study assesses the effects of a participatory intervention on physical activity and fitness levels in prevocational students. The results of this study may lead to a new understanding of the effectiveness of school-based physical activity interventions when students are invited to participate and cocreate an intervention. This process would provide structured health promotion for future public health.Trial RegistrationISRCTN Registry ISRCTN35992636; http://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN35992636International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)DERR1-10.2196/28273

Physical Activity Measures in the Healthy Communities Study.

Adolescents' digital screen time as a concern for health and well-being? Device type and context matter.

BackgroundPhysical activity trends for a lower-middle income country like India suggest a gradual decline in work related physical activity and no concomitant increase in leisure time physical activity. Perceived health benefits of physical activity and intention to increase physical activity have been established as independent correlates of physical activity status. In India, not much is known about peoples’ perceptions of health benefits of physical activity and their intention to increase physical activity levels. This study was performed to understand peoples’ perceptions and awareness about health benefits of physical activity in a rural South Indian region.MethodsThis cross-sectional study was conducted using a multistage cluster sampling design. A content validated, field tested questionnaire was administered in person by a trained interviewer in the participants’ native language. The questionnaire assessed the participants’ perceptions about their lifestyle (active or sedentary), health benefits of physical activity and need for increasing their physical activity. In addition, the participant’s physical activity was assessed using version 2 of global physical activity questionnaire. Frequencies and percentages were used to summarise perceived health benefits of physical activity and other categorical variables. Age and body mass index were summarised using mean ± SD, whereas physical activity (MET.min.wk −1) was summarised using median and interquartile range.ResultsFour hundred fifty members from 125 randomly selected households were included in the study, of which 409 members participated. 89% (364) of participants felt they lead an active lifestyle and 83.1% (340) of participants did not feel a need to increase their physical activity level. 86.1%, (352) of the participants were physically active. Though 92.4% (378) of participants felt there were health benefits of physical activity, majority of them (75.1%) did not report any benefit related to chronic diseases. None mentioned health benefits related to heart disease or stroke.ConclusionThere is low awareness of chronic disease related benefits of physical activity and participants do not see a need to increase their physical activity level. Public health awareness programs on importance and health benefits of physical activity would be useful to counter the anticipated decline in physical activity.

Taking steps in the workplace to improve vascular function.

Promoting healthy movement behaviours among children during the COVID-19 pandemic

The paper by Dumith et al.1 provides a unique synthesis of the current information about the age-related decline in youth physical activity. This is an important contribution to the field at a time when many national governments are encouraging children and adolescents to engage in greater amounts of physical activity.2,3 As such, there are a number of studies that have attempted to increase physical activity both within and outside of school.4 The synthesis by Dumith et al. provides the context for current efforts by showing that, on average, youth physical activity levels decline by ~7% per year, which would equate to an overall decline of ~60–70% during adolescence. Due to a historical absence of data, it is impossible to determine whether this age-related change in physical activity patterns is a function of normal maturation, or a change that has only occurred with the modernization of work patterns and lifestyles. The clear presentation of the age-related decline in physical activity provides an opportunity for researchers to reflect on how best to promote youth physical activity. The marked year-on-year decline suggests that rather than focussing on strategies to increase youth physical activity, our limited resources may be better utilized by helping individuals to maintain their current level of physical activity. While this difference in approach may at first appear to be very subtle and perhaps contradictory, it could have important implications for intervention design. Many current interventions focus on implementing new programmes into schools to bolster extra-curricular provision.4,5 While a new programme may provide exciting new opportunities, it also may have the unintended consequence of forcing participants to alter their current physical activity routine and so result in lower activity levels. For example, it could be the case that an adolescent usually plays an informal game of football (soccer) on a Wednesday afternoon, but stops doing so to attend a martial arts class that is the focus of a new health promotion campaign. When the martial arts programme stops due to the end of the funding, the adolescent may not feel able to rejoin his or her former friends in the informal football games. In this scenario, an existing physical activity opportunity is lost by encouraging the youth to focus on attending a new, but unsustainable, activity. Interestingly, the Dumith review finds that the number of activities in which a youth engages was the physical activity measure that showed the greatest age-related decline. It may, therefore, be the case that helping youth to continue to engage in a range of activities will be of greater long-term benefit than focussing exclusively on providing new activities. Research that assesses the relative long-term success of strategies that promote new activities versus strategies that focus on maintaining existing activity patterns is therefore needed. The review also highlights that current longitudinal physical activity data are largely limited to North-American and Western European samples. We therefore know very little about how physical activity patterns may change with maturation in Asian, South-American or African populations. Furthermore, we know even less about the determinants of physical activity in non-Western nations. Examining both of these issues as countries modernize would provide insights into how physical activity may change with maturation and modernization and therefore studies in these countries are needed now! Dumith et al. highlight that current studies are overly reliant on self-reported data. While this finding may reflect the historical nature of some of the studies and the high cost of objective measures in cohort studies, self-report measures tend to over-estimate physical activity and are less reliable among younger children.6,7 However, while accelerometers can provide second by second data on the intensity of most physical activities in which an adolescent engages, they cannot provide any descriptive information on where the activity took place or what the person was doing while they were active. Although research teams are starting to use global positioning system (GPS)8,9 monitors to quantitatively identify where activity takes place and these devices may soon be able to provide information on the general mode of activity, there is a lack of refinement in the contextual information that GPS monitors can provide. Thus, there is a critical need for studies that combine qualitative and quantitative assessments of youth physical activity to provide a more complete understanding of how activity changes with maturation. Without an understanding of age-related changes in activity in young people and the key determinants of those changes, the effectiveness of any intervention is likely to be severely limited.

Objective Excessive intake of high-energy foods and insufficient levels of physical activity are important causes of obesity. In addition, inadequate physical activity is also a major cause of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Relevant data suggests that most adults fail to achieve the level of physical activity needed to improve their health. Therefore, understanding the reasons for the lack of physical activity levels is essential for developing a reduction in sedentary and thus preventing chronic acute illnesses. It is well known that physical activity is good for health, but little is known about the genetic and biological factors that may affect this complex behavior. Some studies have shown that diet-induced obesity may alter dopaminergic activity and thus reduce physical activity levels, suggesting that obesity and diet may be inversely related to dopamine signaling. Therefore, it is necessary to further study the correlation between obesity, dopamine and physical activity levels, and to explore the relationship between high-fat diet and body weight changes and physical activity levels.
 Methods Sixteen male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into two groups. The control group (n=8) was fed with basal diet for 8 weeks, and the high-fat group (n=8) was fed with high-fat diet for 8 weeks. To compare the difference in body weight and physical activity between SD rats fed with high-fat diet and normal diet, and the relationship between body weight and body activity level; in order to study the effect of obesity on exercise behavior, use the open field experimental recorder for each The movements of the rats in the group were recorded (autonomic activity for 30 min), and the correlation between the effects of high-fat diet on body weight and spontaneous activities of SD rats was analyzed.
 Results High-fat diet and normal-fed rats were in energy intake (high-fat group 4583.94±349.85; control group 3201±298.58), body weight (high-fat group 406.23±29.35; control group 306.66±31.44) and Lee's index (high-fat group 26.17 ± 0.57; control group 24.35 ± 0.97) were significantly different. There was a high correlation between energy intake and body weight in rats, correlation coefficient r=0.911 (p<0.01); correlation coefficient between body weight and physical activity level r = 0.576 (p < 0.05). In addition, by comparing the exercise time and average speed of rats in each group, the difference in exercise time between the two groups was not significant, and the average speed difference was significant (p<0.05); exercise time was significantly correlated with physical activity level, r= 0.734 (p<0.01); and the mean speed was also positively correlated with physical activity level, and the correlation coefficient was 0.660 (P<0.01).
 Conclusions Obesity is greatly affected by dietary factors, and long-term high-fat diets lead to a decline in physical activity, which in turn promotes further deterioration of obesity. This interaction can create a vicious circle between obesity and physical activity. Further research on the mechanisms of obesity, lack of physical activity and their interaction may provide a theoretical basis for increasing the level of physical activity in obese people.