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Published on: March 7, 2019
A description of the volume and intensity of sporadic physical activity among adults
1School of Kinesiology and Health Studies, Queen's University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6 Canada.
Background:
Emerging evidence indicates that accumulating physical activity in periods of less than 10 minutes, termed sporadic physical activity (SPA), has similar effects on health as a similar volume of bouted physical activity (BPA). The purpose of this study was to describe the volume and intensity of SPA in adults.
Methods:
Participants consisted of a representative sample of 6040 adults aged 20 years and older from the 2003-2006 U.S. National Health and Examination Nutrition Survey. Physical activity was measured over 7 days using Actigraph AM-7164 accelerometers. Each minute of accelerometer data was initially categorized by intensity (sedentary, light, moderate-to-vigorous), and then non-sedentary time was categorized as following a BPA or SPA pattern (≥ or < 10 consecutive minutes).
Results:
American adults accumulated 103 minutes/day of SPA of an intensity, which represented 27% of their total (BPA + SPA) daily physical activity. Only 3 minutes/day of the SPA was of a moderate-to-vigorous intensity; however, participants accumulated 16 minutes/day of moderate-to-vigorous activity embedded within light intensity BPA. This embedded moderate-to-vigorous activity represented 85% of total daily moderate-to-vigorous activity.
Conclusions:
SPA accounted for about a quarter of total daily physical activity. While the amount of moderate-to-vigorous SPA was minimal, a significant amount of moderate-to-vigorous activity was accumulated within bouts of primarily light intensity activity.
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