Twelve Years Follow Up - Prevalence Trends Of Physical Inactivity And Overweight In Brazilian Adolescents

Abstract

PURPOSE: Determine the physical inactivity and overweight prevalence in adolescents living at São Paulo State (Brazil) from 2005 to 2017. METHODS: We evaluated 3,845 adolescents as part of a cohort study that started in 2005 in São Paulo city. In this study we analyzed 2.012 both sex adolescents that were followed in 2005, 2009, 2013, 2015 and 2017. In 2005, adolescents were from 15 to 18 years of age. We assessed the habitual physical activity practice by International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ-short-8 version) considering active (AT) the adolescents that accumulated at least 300 minutes per week of moderate-vigorous PA and inactive (INA) if less than 300 min/week were reported. Body weight (kg) and height (m) were self-reported by questionnaire. BMI was calculated and the respective criteria for overweight classification were considered for Brazilian adolescents (CONDE and MONTEIRO, 2006). The anthropometry tendency changed overtime, and a linear regression model was designed to express the annual physical inactivity prevalence average and the excess of body weight. The significance was p<.05. RESULTS: In general, the prevalence of physical inactivity in 2005 was 50.4%, with significant increase to 53.2% (2009); 56.7% (2013); 59.2% (2015) and 60.2% (2017), with 0.91% annual increase. Higher variation was observed in girls than boys (1.32% x 0.89% per year). The overweight prevalence followed similar trend: 2005 (16.7%); 21.2% (2009); 25.8%); 28.2% (2013), 28.7% (2015) and 29.3% (2017) with 1.29% increase per year (p<.05). Girls presented significantly and higher percentage change than boys (1.56 vs. 1.15% per year). CONCLUSIONS: Data showed progressive trend of high physical inactivity and body fat increase, leading to an incidence of obesity in the next 10 years around 71.0% of all adolescents living in Sao Paulo State 37.2% of physically inactive behavior. These data suggests an early development of cardiovascular disease, with higher impact in girls than boys. Also data strongly suggest to effectiveness of public health policies towards the physical inactivity prevention and the excess of body mass among adolescents are related to unhealthy behaviors of eating, drinking and PA.