Abstract
Purpose
Seasonality studies in adolescent’s physical activity (PA) tend to report total PA (e.g. steps/day) rather than more specific detail such as steps/hour. This study compared the detailed changes in PA between seasons.
Methods
Thirty three adolescents (baseline age 12.2 ± 0.3y) wore the activPAL activity monitor for 8 days on two occasions.
Results
Steps/day were higher in summer (Mdn = 12,879) than winter (Mdn = 10,512), p<.001. Steps/hour were significantly higher in summer compared to winter between 17:00 and 21:00 (p<. 044). No steps/day differences were found between boys and girls at either time point (p>.05), however, boys had significantly higher step counts in summer between ’13:00-14:00’ (p=.023), ’19:00-20:00’ (p=.032) and ‘20:00-21:00’ (p=.023).
Conclusion
Total steps/day masked sex differences within specific hours of the day, particularly evening times. Detailed daily patterns of PA are required to fully understand differences between sexes and across seasons.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 358-371 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | International Journal of Exercise Science |
Volume | 8 |
Issue number | 4 |
Publication status | Published - 2015 |
Keywords
- physical activity
- young people
- accelerometers
- seasons