Reciprocal relationship between sedentary behavior and mood in young adults over one-year duration
Introduction
Considerable increases in physical inactivity within the home and workplace among adults suggest the need to examine the consequences of very low levels of energy expenditure, or sedentary behavior (SED). SED, defined as energy expenditure less than 1.5 metabolic equivalents (METS) (Tremblay, Colley, Saunders, Healy, & Owen, 2010) encompasses a majority of the adult day. On average, adults spend 55% of their waking hours sedentary (Matthews et al., 2008). Multiple health consequences have been independently associated with SED such as obesity (Hu et al., 2003, Thorp et al., 2011), cardiovascular disease incidence (Biswas et al., 2015), type 2 diabetes (Biswas et al., 2015) and mortality (Katzmarzyk et al., 2009, Patel et al., 2010). Unfortunately, even with the known risks, increased sitting continues to define a majority of work, travel and leisure time among adults (American Time Use Survey, 2009, Tudor-Locke et al., 2011), with young adults (aged 20–29) spending approximately 7.5 h/day in SED (Matthews et al., 2008). Hence, the need to decrease time spent in SED is critical to help reduce the risk of associated health consequences among adults.
In addition to the numerous health consequences, heightened bouts of SED have also been associated with worsened psychological and psychosocial wellbeing. For example, adults with increased time spent in SED (i.e., sitting, television viewing, couch time) may be more likely to display increased anxiety (Edwards and Loprinzi, 2016b, Teychenne et al., 2015), depression (Edwards & Loprinzi, 2016a) and worsened mood (Edwards & Loprinzi, 2016a). Recent research has begun categorizing types of SED; that is passive sedentary behavior (e.g., television viewing) vs. reading/internet use. Multiple studies have shown an accumulation of >4 hours of screen time is associated with moderate or severe depression and overall poorer mental health among adults (Hamer et al., 2010, Madhav et al., 2017) and older adults (Hamer & Stamatakis, 2014). However, those who choose to be sedentary while reading or using the internet report less depressive symptoms (Hamer & Stamatakis, 2014). In a recent systematic review, it was noted that recreational screen time can mediate the effect of physical activity interventions on mental health outcomes among youth; however more research is necessary to understand the specific mechanisms (Lubans et al., 2016). It is hypothesized that the passive nature of televsion viewing in addition to social isolation and limited ability to build social support networks may be linked to an increase in depressive symptoms as compared to reading or internet use (Hamer & Stamatakis, 2014). Lack of definitive reasoning describing the complex relationship of mood status and sedentary behavior warrants future research.
Identifying ways to reduce sedentary behavior is an important next step to lessen the associated health consequences. In a recent study, previously active individuals were required to become sedentary (no structured activity, unable to accumulate more than 5000 steps/day) for the duration of one week. During the sedentary intervention week, the participant's mood profile worsened, however after returning to their active lifestyle, the participant's mood improved back to baseline (Edwards & Loprinzi, 2016a). Poor mood status is associated with lack of activity; thus the implementation of physical activity (including light- and moderate-intensity) may be a cost-effective way to improve mood without the use of pharmacological agents.
Decreasing time spent in SED and increasing time spent in physical activity (PA) (such as walking), may help to improve mood. However, it is not clear whether SED causes worse mood or the reverse. Therefore, in this secondary analyses, we examine the reciprocal relationship between SED and mood in healthy (free from disease), young adults. The Energy Balance Study (EBS) was a longitudinal, observational study in which SED was objectively measured in addition to a subjective assessment of mood among young adults for the duration of one-year. The purpose of this study was to examine the reciprocal relationship of SED and mood in healthy, young adults. That is, does an increase in SED produce a worsened mood, or does a poor mood yield an increase in SED, or both? Consistent with the literature linking increased SED with a worsened mood (Edwards & Loprinzi, 2016a), we hypothesized that an increase in time in SED would lead to a worsened mood in young adults. However, it is necessary to examine the second relationship type to gain a stronger understanding; does a worsened mood yield higher levels of time spent in SED? Examining this reciprocal relationship of SED and mood may allow for a justifiable approach to mood improvement by reducing time spent sedentary.
Section snippets
Methods
The EBS was a longitudinal, observational study in which participants came to the Clinical Exercise Research Center to complete all measurement visits.
Results
A total of 430 participants (50.7% female) were included in statistical analyses. Sample characteristics for participants is shown in Table 1. The mean age was 27.66 (3.78) years with more than half of the participants being Caucasian (66.5%); other groups included African American (12.6%) and Asian/Asian Americans (10.7%). Approximately 52.6% were normal weight (18.5–24.9 kg/m2 BMI), 32.1% were overweight (25–29.9 kg/m2 BMI) and 15.1% were obese (≥30 kg/m2 BMI). Participants were mostly
Discussion
SED continues to be researched among adults, as prolonged sitting continually encompasses a majority of the workday and leisure activities. Increased time in SED has resulted in a multitude of detrimental physical and social/psychological health consequences including a worsened mood. To the best of our knowledge, there is minimal research on the reciprocal relationship of SED and mood, thus this study contributes to further understanding of the association. The main finding of this study
Funding
This research is funded by a grant to The University of South Carolina from The Coca-Cola Company.
Conflicts of interest
Steven N. Blair has received unrestricted research funding from The Coca-Cola Company and book royalties from Human Kinetics; in addition to honoraria for lectures and consultations from scientific, educational, and lay groups. Gregory A. Hand, Robin P. Shook and Madison M. DeMello have also received money from The Coca-Cola Company. Bernardine M. Pinto, Shira I. Dunsiger and Stephanie Burgess declare they have no conflict of interest. The study sponsor played no role in study design;
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank the study participants, research staff and project consultants.
The sponsor played no role in the study design, collection, analysis and interpretation or data, or preparation and submission of this manuscript.
Presentation: none.
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