Original article
Patterns of Physical Activity, Sedentary Behavior, and Diet in U.S. Adolescents

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2013.03.007Get rights and content

Abstract

Objective

To identify patterns in adolescents’ obesogenic behaviors and their relations to physical and psychological health.

Methods

A nationally representative sample of 9,174 U.S. adolescents ages 11 to 16 years was surveyed on physical activity (PA), screen-based sedentary behavior (SB), frequency of consumption of healthy and unhealthy food items, weight status, weight control behavior, depression, physical symptoms, body dissatisfaction, overall health, and life satisfaction. Latent class analysis was used to identify patterns of PA, SB, and diet.

Results

A model with three latent classes best fit the data: Class 1 with high PA and high fruit and vegetable intake and low SB and intake of sweets, soft drinks, chips, and fries; Class 2 with high SB and high intake of sweets, soft drinks, chips, and fries; and Class 3 with low PA, low fruit and vegetable intake, and low intake of sweets, chips, and fries. Membership in the three classes was related to age, gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. In addition, members of Class 1 (26.5%) were more likely to be of normal weight status and to fare well on most of the other health indices; of Class 2 (26.4%) were less likely to be trying to lose weight but scored poorly on the mental health indices; and of Class 3 (47.2%) were less likely to be underweight and reported greater body dissatisfaction.

Conclusions

Three prevalent patterns of adolescent obesogenic behaviors were identified and these patterns related to weight status, depression, and other indicators of physical and psychological health.

Section snippets

Sample and procedure

A nationally representative sample of U.S. students in grades 6 to 10 was recruited from 230 schools in 39 states with census regions and grades as strata and classrooms as the primary sampling units. African-American and Hispanic students were oversampled to obtain better estimates for those groups. Participants completed the 2005/2006 Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) [15] survey anonymously with a response rate of 87%. Youth assent and, depending on requirements of participating

Sample characteristic

Among the 9,227 adolescents who completed the survey, 21 were excluded due to missing information on all PA, SB, and diet items, resulting in an analytic sample of 9,206 (mean age: 13.9 years), 48.4% males, 48.9% Caucasian Americans, 17.9% African-Americans, and 19.1% Hispanic Americans. Most (65.5%) children were in the normal weight classification with the balance being overweight (17.1%), obese (13.6%), or underweight (3.7%).

Descriptive statistics: Prevalence rates

Descriptive statistics for PA, SB, and diet are reported in Table 1

Discussion

To our knowledge, this is the first application of latent class analysis to identify patterns in obesogenic behaviors in a nationally representative sample of U.S. adolescents. The unique combination of obesogenic behaviors in each class has clear implications for cardiovascular health; each class is related to other indicators of physical and mental health, and each class suggests different approaches for public health efforts. This is a national sample and at a public health level,

Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by the intramural research program of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Contract N01-HD-5-3401) and by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the Health Resources and Services Administration with the first author (Ronald J. Iannotti) as principal investigator. This work was previously reported at the International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity.

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    Conflict of Interest: None.

    Contributor’s Statement: RJI contributed to the study conception and design, acquisition of data, interpretation of data, and drafting the article for important content. JW contributed to the paper conception, analysis, and interpretation of the data, and drafting the article for important content. Both authors approve the version submitted for publication.

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