Physical activity and cognitively difficulties in adolescents: A cross-sectional study of 13,677 participants

Physical activity (PA) has been shown to improve cognitive ability in adolescents. However, there is evidence for the impact of different PA characteristics (e.g., intensity, frequency, type). Therefore, we used national surveillance data to assess the impact of PA characteristics and cognitive impairment in adolescents.

This study included 13,677 high school students from the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. The dependent variable was the presence of cognitive impairment due to physical, mental, or emotional problems. The independent variables related to PA were muscle strengthening, sports team participation, and physical education attendance. We used weighted binary logistic regression to evaluate the association of PA with cognitive impairment while controlling for demographic characteristics.

This study includes 13,677 participants. Ages range from 12 or younger (0.4 %) to 18 or older (11.9 %), with a nearly equal gender distribution (49.0 % female, 51.0 % male). Significant odds ratios (OR) include muscle strengthening for four days vs. 0 days (OR = 1.471) and sports team participation for 1 team vs. 0 teams (OR = 1.281). Males show higher ORs in muscle strengthening and sports participation, while females show significant ORs for one day (OR = 1.344) and six days (OR = 1.387) of muscle strengthening. Physical education attendance shows no significant differences across groups.

Approximately 55.6 % of adolescents were physically inactive, did not engage in muscle-strengthening exercises, did not participate in physical education attendance, and did not engage in sports teams. Participation in PE three or five times per week has a significant impact on cognitive impairment in adolescents.