Physical Activity Intensity And Specific Sedentary Behaviors Of After-school And Weekend Relation To Preschooler's Overweight/obesity

PURPOSE: There is a growing spectrum of severe obesity among young children, but there are few studies to examine the preschooler’s lifestyle on after-school and weekend patterns and its associated with overweight/obesity. This study aimed to investigate after-school and weekend period of specific-intensity physical activity (PA) and domain-specific sedentary behavior (SB) were associated with overweight/obesity in preschooler. METHODS: A representative sample of 1,115 preschooler who aged 3-6 years was conducted from March 2022 to April 2022, in Taipei City, Taiwan. Parents completed a validated, culturally adapted interviewer-administered survey assessing child physical activity, sedentary behaviors and body mass index (BMI). Logistic regression was used to assess the association between PA and SB with overweight/obesity by after-school and weekend periods. RESULTS: Overall, 23% preschooler (age: 4.85 ± 0.91 years; 49.9% girl) were identified with overweight/obesity. After adjustment for all confounding factors, for weekend, total PA in the lowest quartile (Q1) (odds ratio (OR) = 1.81 [95% CI: 1.19 to 2.76]; p = 0.005) and median Quartile (Q2) (OR = 1.55 [95% CI: 1.03 to 2.34]; p = 0.035) were significantly associated with the overweight/obesity when compared with the preschooler in the highest quartile (Q4) of total PA. The similar evidence was found that light-intensity physical activity (LPA) in the lowest quartile (OR = 1.71 [95% CI: 1.10 to 2.69]; p = 0.02) and median Quartile (OR = 1.83 [95% CI: 1.21 to 2.78]; p = 0.004) were more likely to be overweight/obesity than highest LPA quartile in weekend. Further, the highest quartile (OR = 1.50 [95% CI: 1.01 to 2.23]; p = 0.04) and third quartile (OR = 1.88 [95% CI: 1.23 to 2.87]; p = 0.004) of total SB in weekend were associated with overweight/obesity. Moreover, the time spend on screen behavior in third quartile (OR = 1.54 [95% CI: 1.01 to 2.34]; p = 0.045) had a higher odd of overweight/obesity. CONCLUSIONS: To reduce preschooler’s overweight/obesity, our findings emphasize the urgency to design the effective and sustainable strategies to promote LPA and to reduce screen SB, might be dependent on weekend as priority. This research was funded by National Science and Technology Council of Taiwan (NSTC 112-2410-H-845-027)