Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
the girls were generally more likely to be involved in sedentary activities
compared to boys in the tropics, particularly in the Americas.
In comparison, the HBSC study, which involved 41 countries in regions
of Europe and North America (
WHO, 2008
), showed that adolescents in
these mainly high-income countries had somewhat similar PA patterns to
tropical countries. The proportions of adolescents with sufficient PA among
boys and girls in these countries were 25% and 15% in 13 year olds and 20%
and 12% in 15 year olds, respectively. These findings indicate that physical
inactivity is not simply a problem in developing countries but is also a sig-
nificant problem in developed nations. Nevertheless, the comparability
between these two global surveys may be limited due to the application
of different guidelines to define PA and inactivity. For example, adolescents
involved in the HBSC were not asked to exclude physical education class
when reporting their PA and a higher cut-off was used in classifying adoles-
cents with sufficient PA (engaging in activities for at least 60 min a day for 5
or more days a week).
In the context of sedentary behavior, we found discrepancies between
the findings reported by the HBSC and our analysis of the GSHS data.
The HBSC reported that 70% of boys and 69% of girls who were 13 years
old and 69% of boys and 67% of girls who were 15 years old were sedentary
cents in the tropics (approximately 30%), which we compiled from the
GSHS database. This difference is most likely due to the lower cut-off
employed in the HBSC (at least 60 min a day for 5 or more days a week)
and the assessment of only one specific activity in defining sedentary behav-
ior, namely, television watching.
Overall, our compilation of the GSHS data estimated that only 23.9% of
boys and 16.4% of girls in the tropics had met the PA recommendation.
On the other hand, more than one-fourth of the adolescents spent 3 or more
hours a day on sedentary activities (excluding the hours spent sitting at
school and on daily homework).
3.3. PA studies conducted in the tropics
In Malaysia,
Rezali, Chin, and Mohd Yusof (2012)
had reported that the
majority of adolescents (56.8%) in the state of Selangor (Kajang) reported
sedentary lifestyles, followed by light active (35.0%) and moderately active
(6.4%) lifestyles. Only a small percentage of the adolescents (1.8%) engaged
in vigorous activity. Similarly, in Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City), the time
