Longitudinal analysis of self - reported mode, variety and frequency of physical activity and associations with objectively measured physical activity in British youth Hannah Brooke (CEDAR)
10.45, Tuesday 9 July. The Clubhouse, level 4
Background
Promoting physical activity (PA) in youth is important for health but existing PA interventions have had limited success. We aimed to inform intervention design by i) describing dropout, continuation and uptake of specific activities over time; and ii) examining variety (number of different activities/week) and frequency (number of activity session/week) of activity participation and their associations with changes in objectively measured PA from childhood to adolescence.
Methods
At age 10.2±0.3 and 14.2±0.3 years, 319 children in the SPEEDY study (46% boys) wore GT1M Actigraph accelerometers for seven days and self-reported participation in 23 leisure-time activities. Associations of change in moderate-to-vigorous intensity PA (MVPA) (≥2000 counts/minute) with Z-score transformed (change in) variety and frequency were examined using multilevel linear regression, clustered by school, in simple and adjusted models.
Results
Dropout, continuation and uptake varied between activities, but overall variety and frequency declined (mean±SD Δvariety -3.1±4.4 activities/week and Δfrequency -7.2±12.0 session/week). ΔMVPA was not associated with variety or frequency at baseline, nor with Δvariety or Δfrequency (p>0.34 in all models).
Conclusion
Activity preferences change substantially over the transition to adolescence, which should be considered in PA interventions, but PA variety and frequency do not appear to be key elements to include.
Promoting physical activity (PA) in youth is important for health but existing PA interventions have had limited success. We aimed to inform intervention design by i) describing dropout, continuation and uptake of specific activities over time; and ii) examining variety (number of different activities/week) and frequency (number of activity session/week) of activity participation and their associations with changes in objectively measured PA from childhood to adolescence.
Methods
At age 10.2±0.3 and 14.2±0.3 years, 319 children in the SPEEDY study (46% boys) wore GT1M Actigraph accelerometers for seven days and self-reported participation in 23 leisure-time activities. Associations of change in moderate-to-vigorous intensity PA (MVPA) (≥2000 counts/minute) with Z-score transformed (change in) variety and frequency were examined using multilevel linear regression, clustered by school, in simple and adjusted models.
Results
Dropout, continuation and uptake varied between activities, but overall variety and frequency declined (mean±SD Δvariety -3.1±4.4 activities/week and Δfrequency -7.2±12.0 session/week). ΔMVPA was not associated with variety or frequency at baseline, nor with Δvariety or Δfrequency (p>0.34 in all models).
Conclusion
Activity preferences change substantially over the transition to adolescence, which should be considered in PA interventions, but PA variety and frequency do not appear to be key elements to include.