Associations between the Canadian 24 h movement guidelines and different types of bullying involvement among adolescents

The Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for Children and Youth recommend ≥60 min of physical activity per day, ≤2 h of recreational screen time per day, and 9-11 hours of sleep per night for 11-13 years old and 8-10 hours per night for 14-17 years old.

This study examined the association between combinations of these recommendations and school bullying and cyberbullying victimization and perpetration among adolescents.

A total of 5615 Canadian students (mean age = 15.2 years) who participated in the 2017 Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey (OSDUHS) self-reported their physical activity, screen time, sleep duration, and their involvement in bullying.

Logistic regression analyses were adjusted for important covariates.

Meeting the screen time recommendation alone was associated with lower odds of being a victim (OR: 0.64; 95 % CI: 0.46-0.88) or a bully (OR: 0.64; 95 % CI: 0.43-0.96) at school and a victim of cyberbullying (OR: 0.67; 95 % CI: 0.49-0.91). Meeting both the screen time and sleep duration recommendations was associated with lower odds of being a bully (OR: 0.51; 95 % CI: 0.30-0.88). Meeting all 3 recommendations showed stronger associations (i.e. lowest risk) with being a victim of school bullying (OR: 0.32; 95 % CI: 0.19-0.54), a bully-victim (OR: 0.25; 95 % CI: 0.08-0.78) or a victim of cyberbullying (OR: 0.37; 95 % CI: 0.17-0.84).

Our findings provide evidence that meeting the 24 -h movement guidelines is associated with lower odds of bullying involvement. Encouraging adherence to the 24 -h movement guidelines could be a good behavioural target to prevent involvement in both school bullying and cyberbullying.