Where does the time go? Patterns of daily PA in adolescent youth as measured by accelerometer

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore differences in daily physical activity (PA) patterns between adolescents meeting and not meeting the minimum 60-minute daily moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA) guideline.

Methods: 388 adolescents (11 – 13 years) were asked to wear an Actigraph accelerometer for a 9-day period. Data sets were included in analysis if participants had > 10 hours wear time for a minimum of 3 weekdays and 1 weekend day. Data was processed applying the Evenson et al. (2008) cut points to give average daily, weekday, weekend day, before school, lunch time, after school, and evening minutes of MVPA.

Results: Participants accumulated an average of 53 minutes of MVPA per day, and were significantly more active on weekdays than weekend days (p < 0.001). 65% of participants met the minimum 60-minute daily MVPA guideline. Both males and females were significantly less active in the evening compared to the other three time periods (p < 0.001). Participants that met the 60 minute PA guideline were significantly more active than those that didn’t in the lunchtime, after school and evening periods (p < 0.001), but no significant differences were observed in the before school period.

Conclusions: Understanding patterns of PA participation in youth should be a central concern in the development of targeted PA interventions. Findings suggest that school lunchtime, the period immediately after school, and the evening time, are time periods when inactive youth have scope to increase their PA levels.