Sedentary behavior in children and adolescents: an update of the systematic review of the Brazil’s Report Card

Abstract

This review updated data on sedentary behavior in Brazilian children and adolescents for the Brazil’s Report Card 4.0. The searching was carried out in eight databases (PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, LILACS, SPORTDiscus, BIREME, Scielo, and Google Scholar), based on the the following criteria: original research; samples including Brazilian children and adolescents; to be a observational survey with the prevalence of at least one component of sedentary behavior. In this updated review were included 118 studies (corresponding to 159 papers), being 71 studies (104 papers) previously reviewed in the Report Card 3.0 and 47 studies (55 papers) found in update from 2018 to 2019. Screen time (34.7%) and TV viewing (28.2%) remains the most investigated components, however, two studies investigated cell phone use, and there was an increase in other types of sedentary behavior such as sitting time (from 9% to 25.6%). We found only four studies involving pre-scholars, but four of them covered almost all age groups. Self-reported questionnaire was the instrument more used; however, increased the studies using accelerometers (from 2 to 8 studies). The cut-off point more frequent was 2 hours/day (47.5%), but the use of other measures doubled. Almost 70% of the studies reported that less than 50% (general range: 9.4% to 97.7%) of individuals had < 2 hours/day of sedentary behavior. The updated review found few studies with prescholars and children; using validated instruments; using accelerometers, with standardization of cutoff points, and prevalences very close to what was observed in the previous review.

Keywords

• Adolescent behavior
• Brazil
• Prevalence
• Sedentary lifestyle