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. 2017 Jul;47(7):1421-1435.
doi: 10.1007/s40279-016-0658-y.

Sedentary Time and Physical Activity Surveillance Through Accelerometer Pooling in Four European Countries

Anne Loyen  1 , Alexandra M Clarke-Cornwell  2 , Sigmund A Anderssen  3 , Maria Hagströmer  4 , Luís B Sardinha  5 , Kristina Sundquist  6 , Ulf Ekelund  3 , Jostein Steene-Johannessen  3   7 , Fátima Baptista  5 , Bjørge H Hansen  3 , Katrien Wijndaele  8 , Søren Brage  8 , Jeroen Lakerveld  9 , Johannes Brug  9 , Hidde P van der Ploeg  10   11
Affiliations

Sedentary Time and Physical Activity Surveillance Through Accelerometer Pooling in Four European Countries

Anne Loyen et al. Sports Med. 2017 Jul.

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this study was to pool, harmonise and re-analyse national accelerometer data from adults in four European countries in order to describe population levels of sedentary time and physical inactivity.

Methods: Five cross-sectional studies were included from England, Portugal, Norway and Sweden. ActiGraph accelerometer count data were centrally processed using the same algorithms. Multivariable logistic regression analyses were conducted to study the associations of sedentary time and physical inactivity with sex, age, weight status and educational level, in both the pooled sample and the separate study samples.

Results: Data from 9509 participants were used. On average, participants were sedentary for 530 min/day, and accumulated 36 min/day of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity. Twenty-three percent accumulated more than 10 h of sedentary time/day, and 72% did not meet the physical activity recommendations. Nine percent of all participants were classified as high sedentary and low active. Participants from Norway showed the highest levels of sedentary time, while participants from England were the least physically active. Age and weight status were positively associated with sedentary time and not meeting the physical activity recommendations. Men and higher-educated people were more likely to be highly sedentary, while women and lower-educated people were more likely to be inactive.

Conclusions: We found high levels of sedentary time and physical inactivity in four European countries. Older people and obese people were most likely to display these behaviours and thus deserve special attention in interventions and policy planning. In order to monitor these behaviours, accelerometer-based cross-European surveillance is recommended.

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Conflict of interest statement

Funding

The original studies were funded by the Norwegian Directorate of Health and the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences; the Portuguese Institute of Sport; a grant from the Stockholm County Council; and grants from the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research, and The Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences, and Spatial Planning. AL, JL, JB and HvdP were supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (Grant no. 200.600.001). KS was supported by the National Heart, Lung, And Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (award no. R01HL116381). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. KW was supported by the British Heart Foundation (Grant FS/12/58/29709). KW and SB were supported by the UK Medical Research Council (Grant MC_UU_12015/3).

Conflicts of interest

Anne Loyen, Alexandra M. Clarke-Cornwell, Sigmund A. Anderssen, Maria Hagströmer, Luís B. Sardinha, Kristina Sundquist, Ulf Ekelund, Jostein Steene-Johannessen, Fátima Baptista, Bjørge H. Hansen, Katrien Wijndaele, Søren Brage, Jeroen Lakerveld, Johannes Brug and Hidde P. van der Ploeg declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in the original studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the original studies.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Sedentary time and physical inactivity in England, Norway, Portugal and Sweden. This figure is based on the four national population-based studies included in this research and shows the percentage of participants accumulating more than 7.5 and 10 h of sedentary time/day, the percentage of participants not meeting the physical activity recommendations based on total time in MVPA and time in ≥10 min MVPA bouts, and the percentage of participants accumulating more than 10 h of sedentary time per day and not meeting the physical activity recommendation based on total time in MVPA across the different countries. MVPA moderate to vigorous physical activity
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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