Abstract
The aim of this meta-analysis was to quantify the change in sedentary time during the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on health outcomes in the general population. One thousand six hundred and one articles published after 2019 were retrieved from five databases, of which 64 and 40 were included in the systematic review and meta-analysis, respectively. Studies were grouped according to population: children (<18 years), adults (18–64 years) and older adults (>65 years). Average sedentary time was calculated, with sub-analyses performed by country, behaviour type and health outcomes. Children were most affected, increasing their sedentary time by 159.5 ± 142.6 min day−1, followed by adults (+126.9 ± 42.2 min day−1) and older adults (+46.9 ± 22.0 min day−1). There were no sex differences in any age group. Screen time was the only consistently measured behaviour and accounted for 46.8% and 57.2% of total sedentary time in children and adults, respectively. Increases in sedentary time were negatively correlated with global mental health, depression, anxiety and quality of life, irrespective of age. Whilst lockdown negatively affected all age groups, children were more negatively affected than adults or older adults, highlighting this population as a key intervention target. As lockdowns ease worldwide, strategies should be employed to reduce time spent sedentary. Trial registration: PROSPERO (CRD42020208909).
Highlights
Sedentary behaviour, defined as any activity in a seated or reclined posture expending≤1.5 metabolic equivalents (METs, [1]), is suggested to be an independent short- and long-term risk factor for markers of adiposity, cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes mellitus [2,3,4]
There were 64 studies included within the review [18,20,21,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84], of which 19 studies included children with 5, 11, and 3 studies scoring high, moderate, and low quality, respectively, on the Grading of Recommendations Assessment Development and Evaluation (GRADE) scale (Table S1)
The 64 studies included within this systematic review encompassed 282,202 participants (28.5 ± 17.1 years), of which 262,630 were adults (93.1%; 36.5 ± 5.5 years), 16,214 were children (5.7%; 11.5 ± 2.3 years) and 3358 older adults (1.2%; 60.6 ± 8.0 years)
Summary
Sedentary behaviour, defined as any activity in a seated or reclined posture expending≤1.5 metabolic equivalents (METs, [1]), is suggested to be an independent short- and long-term risk factor for markers of adiposity, cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes mellitus [2,3,4]. Sedentary behaviour, defined as any activity in a seated or reclined posture expending. Prolonged bouts of uninterrupted sedentary time across the day are associated with significant health risks [3,5] that have been shown to persist irrespective of physical activity (PA) levels [1,6,7], this remains contentious [8,9]. Even 10 min of uninterrupted sedentary time has been reported to decrease insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance and increase circulating triglyceride levels [1]. Similar levels of sedentary time (up to 12.3 ± 1.4 h day−1 ) have been reported globally in adults [3,4].
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