Physical Activity, Sedentary Time, and Obesity in an International Sample of Children (original) (raw)

To determine the relationships between moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), vigorous physical activity (VPA), sedentary time and obesity in children from 12 countries representing a wide range of human development. Methods: The sample included 6,539 children aged 9-11 years. Time in MVPA, VPA and sedentary behaviors were assessed by accelerometry. The body mass index (BMI; kg/m 2 ) was used to classify children as obese based on z-scores (>+2 SD) from World Health Organization reference data. Results: The mean (SD) times spent in MVPA, VPA and sedentary behavior were 60 (25) min/day, 18 (11) min/day and 513 (69) min/day, respectively. The overall proportion of the sample that was obese ranged from 5.2% to 24.6% across sites. The odds ratios for obesity were significant for MVPA (0.49; 95% CI: 0.44 -0.55), VPA (0.41; 0.37 -0.46) and sedentary time (1.19; 1.08 -1.30) in the overall sample. The associations of MVPA and VPA with obesity were significant in all 12 sites, whereas the association between sedentary time and obesity was significant in 5 of the 12 sites.