Get Active to Surmount your Sedentary Lifestyle

Addressing the Obesity Epidemic

Obesity and being overweight is a major problem in this country and there is no clear answer on how to solve it. One of the things I want to be able to do with this blog is make as much of an impact as I can to bring down the number of obese people in the America. We all have unhealthy habits, I know before this blog I spent way too much time just watching TV, movies, or mindlessly watching youtube. I think the way to get moving and active is for a person to start striving for a goal. Similar to my goal of wanting to see a more fit America, the goal may seem impossible but I’m going to put in the effort to see it fulfilled as best as I can.

 

A 3-Year Look at Adolescent Behavior

This was a 3-year longitudinal study, meaning the researchers spent a period 3 years conducting the study. Due to the results, requirements set by the researchers a total of 155 participants’ assessments were a part of the final sample. The researchers wanted to study the student’s natural physical activity behavior patterns. The research was conducted in Londrina-PR, Brazil. All of the public schools in the city were divided into regions and two schools were randomly selected from within those regions. The choice of the classroom was then randomly selected from the schools. At baseline – beginning – there were 690 adolescents between the ages of 11 and 12 selected to be a part of the study.

The researchers gave each student an accelerometer to track their activity for, at minimum, 4 days out of the week. Of the 690 students, 394 were able to track their physical activity for at least 4 days. That is to say, the students did not have to participate in physical activity, they just had to track their movements over a 4 day period not including situations where one could get the device wet, such as a pool or in the bath. However, of the 394 valid participants, only 155 were included in the final sample.

 

Participant Limitations: Evaluating Sample Validity

I’ve expressed in a previous post that one limitation for a study could be the location that it was conducted. This study was conducted in a city in Brazil. However, I think that all humans are more similar than different and as long as the study design does it’s best to create a valid study, the results are valid.

There were some limitations the researchers placed on the participants in the study. At baseline, the participants had to be between the ages of 10 and 14. They were excluded if they had an incomplete cardiovascular risk task performed on them or if they were under treatment for any disease or injury they received over the course of the study. Also, those who were not present on all the days of data acquisition were not included.

These are pretty decent reasons to exclude a portion of the sample. And still ending up with 155 participants is still quite a large number that helps with the data analysis.

 

Findings: Insights into Physical Activity Trends

Now the results are going to get a certain portion of the population feeling a type of way. Just remember I’m just reporting the results of the study. I do think this is the case even in our society but I’ll just let the results tell its own tale.

Since the study was comprised of children at the ages of 11 – 12 and since this study was conducted over the course of 3 years, there is going to be a clear increase in BMI. Boys and girls get taller, they both gain a certain amount of muscle mass and bone density. But it seems that overall cardiovascular fitness values were only observed among the boys. Now I did say 155 participants. You may think that boys have higher rates of cardiorespiratory fitness because more of them were a part of the study. You’d be wrong. 54.1% of those 155 were girls and what’s more, they had an increase in waist circumference z-score values.

A z-score is used in studies like these to help normalize measurements. If a z-score wasn’t performed you might assume that waist circumference size increased due to the 3-year age increase and that biology was taking it’s course. But let’s forget about z-score for the non-statisticians out there. At baseline the boys and girls waist circumference size was 69.81cm and 67.88cm, respectively. At the end of the study they were 79.61cm and 77.79cm. You may think that they both increased by about 10 centimeters, why are the girls considered to have a worse outcome.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) the waist circumference for a boy at 11 years of age should be between 65 – 75 cm and 60 – 70 cm for girls. At the age of 14, boys and girls should have a waist circumference of 70 – 80cm and 65 – 75cm, respectively. The boys are within measurements, while the girls… That’s not to say that this trend persists through adulthood. Afterall, in the United States 1 in 3 men while 1 in 4 women are considered obese.

  

Conclusion: Strategies for Improving Adolescent Health

This was an okay study. It definitely helped to shed light on the physical exercise habits of children at a certain age. The pathway moving forward is to try to discover what might be the reason that boys and girls are either resistant or not prone to physical activity in the stages between adolescents to adulthood.

Off the top of my head it could be from a lack of access for children to participate in physical activity. Being locked in a building for 7, 8, 9 hours a day - 5 days a week, isn’t very conducive to physical activity. It could also be that this way of life persists when it comes to adulthood and needing to get a job. The road to solving this obesity problem will be long and arduous. We’ll take to make change a little every-day, one day at a time.

 

Call to Action: Get Involved!

Let’s work together to create a healthier America! Share your experiences with physical activity and sedentary behavior. How do you overcome obstacles to staying active? Your insights could inspire others on their journey to better health.

 

Volpato, L. A., Weber, V. M., Lopes, W. A., Sasaki, J. E., Romanzini, C. L., Ronque, E. R., & Romanzini, M. (2024). Associations between substitution of sedentary behavior patterns with physical activity and cardiovascular risk factors in adolescents: A 3-Year longitudinal study. Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1123/jpah.2024-0149