Recognition of 16–18-year-old adolescents for guiding physical activity interventions: a cross-sectional study

Bhatti, S. N., Watkin, E., Butterfill, J. and Li, J.-m. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3294-3818 (2020) Recognition of 16–18-year-old adolescents for guiding physical activity interventions: a cross-sectional study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17 (14). 5002. ISSN 1660-4601 doi: 10.3390/ijerph17145002

Abstract/Summary

Adolescence is a rapid life stage requiring special attention wherein personal autonomy is developed to govern independent lifestyles. Unhealthy lifestyles are integral to prevailing adolescent physical inactivity patterns. Understudied 16–18-year-olds were investigated to establish physical activity prevalences and influencing health-related lifestyle factors. Adolescents were recruited randomly across 2017–2019 from Farnborough College of Technology and North Kent College, UK. Demographic and health-related lifestyle information were gathered anonymously and analysed using SAS® 9.4 software. Among the 414 adolescents included (48.3% male and 51.7% female), the mean (standard deviation (SD)) age was 16.9 (0.77). Approximately 15.2% smoked and 20.8% were overweight/obese. There were 54.8% perceiving themselves unfit and 33.3% spent >4 h/day on leisure-time screen-based activity. Around 80.4% failed to meet the recommended fruit/vegetable daily intake and 90.1% failed to satisfy UK National Physical Activity Guidelines, particularly females (p = 0.0202). Physical activity levels were significantly associated with gender, body mass index, smoking status, leisure sedentary screen-time, fruit/vegetable consumption and fitness perceptions. Those who were female, overweight/obese, non-smoking, having poor fitness perceptions, consuming low fruit/vegetables and engaging in excess screen-based sedentariness were the groups with lowest physical activity levels. Steering physical activity-oriented health interventions toward these at-risk groups in colleges may reduce the UK’s burden of adolescent obesity.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/91803
Identification Number/DOI	10.3390/ijerph17145002
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Biological Sciences > Biomedical Sciences
Publisher	MDPI Publishing
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