Association of cardiorespiratory fitness, physical activity level, and sedentary behavior with overweight in adolescents

Abstract

Physical activity and sedentary behavior promote opposite effects on overweight and obesity, in adolescents; however little is known of their combined impact on these outcomes. We aimed to investigate if there were any associations between overweight, and physical activity level, cardiorespiratory fitness, and sedentary behavior, both as isolated variables and in combination. Data of 1,015students from two public and four private schools from the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil were analyzed. Overweight was classified according to body mass index, whereas physical activity level was assessed by the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ), cardiorespiratory fitness by a 9-minute test (T9), and sedentary behavior by a self-completed questionnaire, considering the time spent watching television as the main indicator. Associations were examined by binary logistic regression analysis. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CIs) were used to measure the magnitude of the associations. IBM SPSS Statistics version 20 was used for all statistical analyses. Adolescents with poor cardiorespiratory fitness (OR=3.71; 95%CI=1.30-10.6) and a high degree of sedentary behavior (OR=1.73; 95%CI=1.24-2.42) had a bigger chance of being overweight. However the combination of these two categories in the same individual was not statistically associated with overweight. The study indicates that both sedentary behavior and poor performance on cardiorespiratory fitness test are significantly independent associated with overweight in adolescents.

Keywords

• adolescent
• obesity
• physical fitness
• sedentary behavior