The time spent sitting does not always mean a low level of physical activity

Abstract

Background: The problem of spending most of the day in a sitting position concerns all people, regardless of their age. Unfortunately, this trend is more and more often observed among young people. The aim of the study was to assess self-reported physical activity and time spent sitting among students of different fields of health related faculty. Methods: The study group included 216 students (22.3 ± 1.8 years of age) of the Medical University of Lodz: physiotherapy students (n = 101), pharmacy students (n = 73), and dietetics students (n = 42). The time spent sitting and physical activity level were assessed based on the International Physical Activity Questionnaire-long version. Results: The time spent sitting among health related faculty students was on average more than 46 h a week (2781.8 ± 1238.5 MET-minutes/week). Regarding all the students the pharmacy students spent most time sitting (3086.0 ± 1032.1 MET-minutes/week), while the dietetics students spent the least (2215.7 ± 1230.1 MET-minutes/ week). Taking into account the physical activity level almost 65% of all the students were in a high category (mainly physiotherapy students). Only 1.4% of all the surveyed students were classified as the low physical activity category. Statistical analysis showed no significant differences (P = 0.6880) between the time spent sitting and level of physical activity among all students. Conclusions: Students of medical universities spend too much hours on sitting, mostly 5-8 h a day. Despite this, they undertake various activities due to which their level of physical activity is moderate or even high. Therefore, it cannot be unequivocally stated that there is a relationship between the time spent sitting and physical activity level.

Daily sitting time and its association with non-communicable diseases and multimorbidity in Catalonia

“…Sedentary behaviour is independent of the amount of PA and can coexist with high levels of PA. 18 , 19 Thus, sedentary behaviour has been progressively considered as an independent risk factor from PI associated with higher risk of poor health outcomes. 19 , 20 Recent studies have studied the associations between sedentary behaviour and the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, some cancers and cardiovascular diseases. 21–31 George et al 22 studied the association between time spent sitting while watching screens and renal cell carcinoma, without finding significant association between them.…”

Transdisziplinäre Forschung in der Gesundheitsförderung bei Studierenden – ein systematisches Review

“…Einleitung Bewegungsarmut und sitzendes Verhalten prägen vielfach den Alltag Studierender. Da dies negative Auswirkungen auf die Gesundheit haben kann, gewinnt die Implementierung von Programmen zu Bewegungsförderung und Vermeidung des sitzenden Verhaltens im Setting Hochschule an Bedeutung [11,16,18]. Die Wirksamkeit von Top-down-Ansätzen wird zunehmend angezweifelt, so dass partizipative Programmentwicklungen Einzug halten [2].…”

Longitudinal associations between physical activity and other health behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic: A fixed effects analysis

“…Moreover, there is also evidence that increases in PA are associated with reductions in sedentary time [2,15,16]. However, this relationship may not simply be inversely proportional as people may reallocate time from other daily PA into dedicated exercise PA instead of shortening their sedentary time [17][18][19]. Sedentary time also varies in forms, ranging from office work to television viewing, which may each show different relationships with PA [20].…”