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 |
|---|---|
| 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
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McCrorie, P., Duncan, E., Granat, M. H., & Stansfield, B. W. (2015). Seasonal variation in the distribution of daily stepping in 11-13 year old school children. International Journal of Exercise Science, 8(4), 358-371.