Early Life Factors and Adult Leisure Time Physical Inactivity Stability and Change

SNEHAL M. PINTO PEREIRA, LEAH LI, CHRIS POWER
2015 Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise  
Purpose: Physical inactivity has a high prevalence and associated disease burden. A better understanding is needed of influences on sustaining and changing inactive lifestyles. We aimed to establish whether leisure-time inactivity was stable in mid-adulthood and whether early-life factors were associated with inactivity patterns. Methods: In the 1958 British Birth cohort (N=12,271), leisure-time inactivity (frequency<once/week) assessed at 33y and 50y was categorised as 'never inactive',
more » ... tently inactive', 'deteriorating' or 'improving'. Early-life factors (birth to 16y) were categorised into three (physical, social, behavioural) domains. Using multinomial logistic regression, we assessed associations with inactivity persistence and change of factors within each early-life domain, and the three domains combined with and without adjustment for adult factors. Results: Inactivity prevalence was similar at 33y and 50y (~31%), but 17% deteriorated and 18% improved with age. In models adjusted for all domains simultaneously, factors associated with inactivity persistence vs never inactive were pre-pubertal stature (8% lower risk/height SD), poor hand control/co-ordination (17% higher risk/increase on 4-point scale), cognition (16% lower/SD in ability) (physical); parental divorce (25% higher), class at birth (7% higher/reduction on 4-point scale), minimal parental education (16% higher), household amenities (2% higher/increase in 19-point score (high=poor)) (social); inactivity (22% higher/reduction in activity on 4-point scale), low sports aptitude (47% higher), smoking (30% higher) (behavioural). All except stature, parental education, sports aptitude and smoking were associated also with inactivity deterioration. Poor hand control/co-ordination was the only factor associated with improved status (13% lower/increase on 4-point scale) vs persistently inactive. Conclusions: Adult leisure-time inactivity is moderately stable. Early-life factors are associated with persistent and deteriorating inactivity over decades in mid-adulthood, but rarely with improvement.
doi:10.1249/mss.0000000000000610 pmid:25563907 fatcat:e27asgr4vfewtikvdstweweqnq