Cargando…

Confusion and Conflict in Assessing the Physical Activity Status of Middle-Aged Men

BACKGROUND: Physical activity (including exercise) is prescribed for health and there are various recommendations that can be used to gauge physical activity status. The objective of the current study was to determine whether twelve commonly-used physical activity recommendations similarly classifie...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Thompson, Dylan, Batterham, Alan M., Markovitch, Daniella, Dixon, Natalie C., Lund, Adam J. S., Walhin, Jean-Philippe
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2009
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2629570/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19183812
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0004337
_version_ 1782163792061267968
author Thompson, Dylan
Batterham, Alan M.
Markovitch, Daniella
Dixon, Natalie C.
Lund, Adam J. S.
Walhin, Jean-Philippe
author_facet Thompson, Dylan
Batterham, Alan M.
Markovitch, Daniella
Dixon, Natalie C.
Lund, Adam J. S.
Walhin, Jean-Philippe
author_sort Thompson, Dylan
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Physical activity (including exercise) is prescribed for health and there are various recommendations that can be used to gauge physical activity status. The objective of the current study was to determine whether twelve commonly-used physical activity recommendations similarly classified middle-aged men as sufficiently active for general health. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We examined the commonality in the classification of physical activity status between twelve variations of physical activity recommendations for general health in ninety men aged 45–64 years. Physical activity was assessed using synchronised accelerometry and heart rate. Using different guidelines but the same raw data, the proportion of men defined as active ranged from to 11% to 98% for individual recommendations (median 73%, IQR 30% to 87%). There was very poor absolute agreement between the recommendations, with an intraclass correlation coefficient (A,1) of 0.24 (95% CI, 0.15 to 0.34). Only 8% of men met all 12 recommendations and would therefore be unanimously classified as active and only one man failed to meet every recommendation and would therefore be unanimously classified as not sufficiently active. The wide variability in physical activity classification was explained by ostensibly subtle differences between the 12 recommendations for thresholds related to activity volume (time or energy), distribution (e.g., number of days of the week), moderate intensity cut-point (e.g., 3 vs. 4 metabolic equivalents or METs), and duration (including bout length). CONCLUSIONS: Physical activity status varies enormously depending on the physical activity recommendation that is applied and even ostensibly small differences have a major impact. Approximately nine out of every ten men in the present study could be variably described as either active or not sufficiently active. Either the effective dose or prescription that underlies each physical activity recommendation is different or each recommendation is seeking the same prescriptive outcome but with variable success.
format Text
id pubmed-2629570
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2009
publisher Public Library of Science
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-26295702009-02-02 Confusion and Conflict in Assessing the Physical Activity Status of Middle-Aged Men Thompson, Dylan Batterham, Alan M. Markovitch, Daniella Dixon, Natalie C. Lund, Adam J. S. Walhin, Jean-Philippe PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: Physical activity (including exercise) is prescribed for health and there are various recommendations that can be used to gauge physical activity status. The objective of the current study was to determine whether twelve commonly-used physical activity recommendations similarly classified middle-aged men as sufficiently active for general health. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We examined the commonality in the classification of physical activity status between twelve variations of physical activity recommendations for general health in ninety men aged 45–64 years. Physical activity was assessed using synchronised accelerometry and heart rate. Using different guidelines but the same raw data, the proportion of men defined as active ranged from to 11% to 98% for individual recommendations (median 73%, IQR 30% to 87%). There was very poor absolute agreement between the recommendations, with an intraclass correlation coefficient (A,1) of 0.24 (95% CI, 0.15 to 0.34). Only 8% of men met all 12 recommendations and would therefore be unanimously classified as active and only one man failed to meet every recommendation and would therefore be unanimously classified as not sufficiently active. The wide variability in physical activity classification was explained by ostensibly subtle differences between the 12 recommendations for thresholds related to activity volume (time or energy), distribution (e.g., number of days of the week), moderate intensity cut-point (e.g., 3 vs. 4 metabolic equivalents or METs), and duration (including bout length). CONCLUSIONS: Physical activity status varies enormously depending on the physical activity recommendation that is applied and even ostensibly small differences have a major impact. Approximately nine out of every ten men in the present study could be variably described as either active or not sufficiently active. Either the effective dose or prescription that underlies each physical activity recommendation is different or each recommendation is seeking the same prescriptive outcome but with variable success. Public Library of Science 2009-02-02 /pmc/articles/PMC2629570/ /pubmed/19183812 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0004337 Text en Thompson et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Thompson, Dylan
Batterham, Alan M.
Markovitch, Daniella
Dixon, Natalie C.
Lund, Adam J. S.
Walhin, Jean-Philippe
Confusion and Conflict in Assessing the Physical Activity Status of Middle-Aged Men
title Confusion and Conflict in Assessing the Physical Activity Status of Middle-Aged Men
title_full Confusion and Conflict in Assessing the Physical Activity Status of Middle-Aged Men
title_fullStr Confusion and Conflict in Assessing the Physical Activity Status of Middle-Aged Men
title_full_unstemmed Confusion and Conflict in Assessing the Physical Activity Status of Middle-Aged Men
title_short Confusion and Conflict in Assessing the Physical Activity Status of Middle-Aged Men
title_sort confusion and conflict in assessing the physical activity status of middle-aged men
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2629570/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19183812
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0004337
work_keys_str_mv AT thompsondylan confusionandconflictinassessingthephysicalactivitystatusofmiddleagedmen
AT batterhamalanm confusionandconflictinassessingthephysicalactivitystatusofmiddleagedmen
AT markovitchdaniella confusionandconflictinassessingthephysicalactivitystatusofmiddleagedmen
AT dixonnataliec confusionandconflictinassessingthephysicalactivitystatusofmiddleagedmen
AT lundadamjs confusionandconflictinassessingthephysicalactivitystatusofmiddleagedmen
AT walhinjeanphilippe confusionandconflictinassessingthephysicalactivitystatusofmiddleagedmen