Regular Exercise, Subjective Wellbeing, and Internalizing Problems in Adolescence: Causality or Genetic Pleiotropy?

Bartels, Meike; Moor, Marleen H. M. de; Aa, Niels van der; Boomsma, Dorret I.; Geus, Eco J. C. de

doi:10.3389/fgene.2012.00004

Cited by 29 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Finally, the Cantril ladder [Cantril, 1965] was administered to evaluate general quality of life on an 11-point scale with 0 indicating the worst possible life and 10 the best possible life. Previous psychometric analysis has shown that the correlation between the latent factor scores of these three measures of subjective wellbeing range between 0.70 and 0.95, indicating that a dimensional score combining these three measures is a valid and reliable measure of overall subjective wellbeing [Bartels et al, 2012]. Based on these findings, these three scales were combined to form one overall subjective measure of wellbeing in the current study.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 76%

Special interests and subjective wellbeing in autistic adults

et al. 2018

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Autistic adults reported having special interests in a range of topics, including computers, music, autism, nature and gardening. Special interests were associated with a number of positive outcomes for autistic adults. They were also related to subjective wellbeing and satisfaction across specific life domains including social contact and leisure. Very high intensity of engagement with special interests was related to lower levels of wellbeing. This highlights the important role that special interests play in the lives of autistic adults.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 76%

Special interests and subjective wellbeing in autistic adults

et al. 2018

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“…35 A further possibility is that factors, such as the brain-derived neurotrophic fac-netic factors predict activity and depressive symptoms. 37,38 Although we cannot rule out this possibility, how it could explain the time-varying, bidirectional association seen in our study remains unclear.…”

Section: Interpretation and Comparison With Other Studiesmentioning

confidence: 83%

Depressive Symptoms and Physical Activity During 3 Decades in Adult Life

2014

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IMPORTANCE Associations have been documented between physical activity and depressive symptoms, but the direction of this association is unclear.OBJECTIVE To examine whether depressive symptoms are concurrent with physical activity and to examine the direction of the relationship from 23 to 50 years of age. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTSParticipants included members of the 1958 British Birth Cohort, a general population sample of all persons born in England, Scotland, and Wales in a single week in March 1958 who were followed up to 50 years of age (2008). We included approximately 11 000 cohort members with information on depressive symptoms or frequency of physical activity at 23, 33, 42, or 50 years of age.EXPOSURES Depressive symptoms were measured using the Psychological subscale of the Malaise Inventory; frequency of physical activity, by questionnaire. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURESNumber of depressive symptoms (on a scale of 0 to 15 items), depression (defined as being in the top 10% for symptoms at 23, 33, 42, or 50 years of age), and frequency of physical activity (times per week).RESULTS At most ages, we found a trend of fewer depressive symptoms with more frequent activity; for example, per higher frequency of activity per week at 50 years of age, the mean number of symptoms was lower by 0.06 (95% CI, −0.09 to −0.04). In longitudinal analyses, activity was associated with fewer symptoms from 23 to 50 years of age (per higher frequency of activity per week, symptoms were lower by 0.06 [95% CI, −0.07 to −0.05]), and the magnitude of association did not vary with age (P = .21 for interaction). Those who were inactive at 23 years of age and remained inactive 5 years later showed no change in symptom level (mean difference, −0.01 [95% CI, −0.04 to 0.02]); those increasing activity to 3 times/wk had a lower mean number of symptoms (mean difference, −0.18 [95% CI, −0.22 to −0.15]). Such differences equate to estimated reductions in odds of depression by 19%. A longitudinal relationship observed between symptoms and activity weakened with age (P < .001 for interaction). Mean activity among those with no symptoms at 23 years of age and 5 years later was higher by 0.60 (95% CI, 0.57-0.64) times/wk; in those with 1 additional depressive symptom, 0.53 (95% CI, 0.49-0.56) times/wk. Activity frequency did not differ among those with no symptoms at 43 years of age who subsequently had 0 or 1 symptom at 48 years of age. Associations for depression were generally similar to those for the full symptom spectrum. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCEThe relationship between activity and depressive symptoms was bidirectional, albeit more persistent during adult life in the direction from activity to depressive symptoms. Findings suggest that activity may alleviate depressive symptoms in the general population and, in turn, depressive symptoms in early adulthood may be a barrier to activity.

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“…Given that not only the genetic correlations, but also the environmental correlations and the cross-trait correlations between the MZ twin difference scores were significant (the latter two with the exception of ‘Benefits’ and ‘Embarrassment’ in males), the data are indeed compatible with a causal effect of attitudes on exercise behavior, in that a different pattern might have led to falsification of this hypothesis. Such falsification was for instance illustrated for the effects of exercise behavior on mental health (de Moor et al 2008) and subjective well-being (Bartels et al 2012). However, it should be noted that the data do not constitute proof of causality, and that due to the cross-sectional design, the direction of any causality remains unknown.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Twin-Sibling Study on the Relationship Between Exercise Attitudes and Exercise Behavior

et al. 2013

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Social cognitive models of health behavior propose that individual differences in leisure time exercise behavior are influenced by the attitudes towards exercise. At the same time, large scale twin-family studies show a significant influence of genetic factors on regular exercise behavior. This twin–sibling study aimed to unite these findings by demonstrating that exercise attitudes can be heritable themselves. Secondly, the genetic and environmental cross-trait correlations and the monozygotic (MZ) twin intrapair differences model were used to test whether the association between exercise attitudes and exercise behavior can be causal. Survey data were obtained from 5,095 twins and siblings (18–50 years). A genetic contribution was found for exercise behavior (50 % in males, 43 % in females) and for the six exercise attitude components derived from principal component analysis: perceived benefits (21, 27 %), lack of skills, support and/or resources (45, 48 %), time constraints (25, 30 %), lack of energy (34, 44 %), lack of enjoyment (47, 44 %), and embarrassment (42, 49 %). These components were predictive of leisure time exercise behavior (R2 = 28 %). Bivariate modeling further showed that all the genetic (0.36 <|rA| <0.80) and all but two unique environmental (0.00 <|rE| <0.27) correlations between exercise attitudes and exercise behavior were significantly different from zero, which is a necessary condition for the existence of a causal effect driving the association. The correlations between the MZ twins’ difference scores were in line with this finding. It is concluded that exercise attitudes and exercise behavior are heritable, that attitudes and behavior are partly correlated through pleiotropic genetic effects, but that the data are compatible with a causal association between exercise attitudes and behavior.

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Regular Exercise, Subjective Wellbeing, and Internalizing Problems in Adolescence: Causality or Genetic Pleiotropy?

Cited by 29 publications

References 43 publications

Special interests and subjective wellbeing in autistic adults

Special interests and subjective wellbeing in autistic adults

Depressive Symptoms and Physical Activity During 3 Decades in Adult Life

A Twin-Sibling Study on the Relationship Between Exercise Attitudes and Exercise Behavior

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