Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 3, 2025
Visualization of Intensity Levels to Reduce the Gap Between Self-Reported and Directly Measured Physical Activity
Published on: March 7, 2019
Differences in Accelerometer-Measured Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior Between Middle-Aged Men and Women in
Shiho Amagasa1,2,3, Shigeru Inoue2, Ai Shibata4
1Graduate School of Public Health, Teikyo UniversityTokyo,Japan.
Background:
Differences in accelerometer-measured sedentary behavior and different physical activity (PA) intensities between men and women have been poorly described. The authors examined gender differences in time-use activity composition and total volume of PA.
Methods:
A cross-sectional mail survey was conducted from 2013 to 2015 with a randomized sample of 6000 middle-aged (40-64 y) community-dwelling Japanese adults living in urban and regional cities. Participants wore Active style Pro HJA-350IT on their waist for 7 consecutive days. Gender differences in activity time use was examined using compositional data analysis to control for time spent in all activity measures.
Results:
In total, 757 participants (303 men, 52.3 [7.1] y) with valid data were included in the analysis. Women spent on average 12.6% less time in sedentary behavior and 23.4% more time in light-intensity PA than men, whereas no significant difference was found for moderate to vigorous PA. Women accumulated a significantly greater volume of PA than men (17.8 vs 15.0 metabolic equivalent of task h/d).
Conclusions:
Japanese middle-aged women showed higher levels of PA than men because they spent more time in light-intensity PA. Given the health benefits of light-intensity PA, evaluating only moderate to vigorous PA may lead to an underestimation of women's participation in PA.
