Abstract
Enacted measures to control the spread of COVID-19 disease such as compulsory confinement may influence health behaviors. The present study investigated changes in physical activity (PA) levels during the first days of confinement. Using an online survey, the Spanish population (n = 2042, 54% women, age 35.9 (SD 13.6) years) replied to questions concerning sociodemographic characteristics as well as PA behavior before and during the first week of enacted isolation. Physical activity vital sign (PAVS) short form was used to estimate weekly minutes of PA before and during the isolation period. Statistical analysis used the following tests: Mc Nemar Chi-squared tests, independent and paired samples t-test, and effect size (Cohen’s d). During the first week of confinement, participants reduced their weekly PA levels by 20% (~45.2 weekly minutes (95% CI: 37.4−53.0)). This led to a decrease from 60.6% to 48.9% (difference: 11.7%) (p < 0.0001) in the number of participants meeting the recommended World Health Organization (WHO) PA levels. Subgroups including men, participants aged 43 or over, and those not holding a university degree had the greatest reductions in both weekly minutes of PA and adherence to guidelines. The PA levels of the Spanish population generally declined during the first days of COVID-19 confinement.
Highlights
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11th March of 2020 [1]
Time spent outdoors has been associated with higher levels of physical activity (PA), higher physical fitness, and lower sedentary behavior, whereas outdoor sports have been linked to a wide-range of health benefits; Spanish citizens without access to open spaces or green areas might experience a decline in their PA levels [7,8]
Exhaustive exercise, overtraining, or high-intensity exercise may lead to immunosuppression [9], emerging evidence suggests that regular PA enhances the immune function and increases resistance to infections compared with a sedentary lifestyle [10,11,12,13,14,15,16]
Summary
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11th March of 2020 [1]. One prospective study found PA associated with a decreased risk of community-acquired pneumonia among women [19], and pneumonia is one of the complications caused by COVID-19 in some infected people [20] This is a question of physical health and a mental health issue, since a social isolation context and perception of loneliness predicted both anxiety and depression symptoms in older people, and could lead to both poor mental health as well as a higher likelihood of suicidal ideation [21,22,23], which might be attenuated through PA [24,25,26]
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