Association between physical activity patterns and depressive symptoms in Korean adults: a nationwide crosssectional...

Recently, the "weekend warrior" pattern, characterized by meeting recommended physical activity (PA) guidelines within one or two weekly sessions, has received increasing attention. However, its association with mental health outcomes remains unclear. This study aimed to examine the relationship between PA patterns and depressive symptoms.

This study analyzed data from 26,424 adults from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted in 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022. PA was assessed by a self-reported questionnaire and classified according to World Health Organization guidelines for moderate-to-vigorous PA. Participants were categorized as inactive (<150 min/ wk), weekend warriors (≥150 min/wk over 1-2 days), or regularly active (≥150 min/wk over ≥3 days). Depressive symptoms were defined as a Patient Health Questionnaire-9 score ≥5. Associations were examined using multivariable logistic regression, stratified by sex and age.

Prevalence of depressive symptoms among participants was 19.3%. The weekend warrior PA pattern was not significantly associated with depressive symptoms. Contrarily, the regularly active PA pattern was inversely associated with depressive symptoms (odds ratio [OR], 0.72; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.66-0.79); this association remained significant after multivariable adjustment (OR, 0.81; 95% CI, 0.74-0.89). In stratified analyses by sex and age group, the regularly active group consistently showed an inverse association with depressive symptoms, whereas no significant association was observed for the weekend warrior PA pattern.

Regularity of physical activity may be more important for mental health than total activity volume alone.