Context
Opportunities for young people to be sedentary have increased during leisure time,
study time, and transportation time.
Purpose
This review paper focuses on sedentary behaviors among young people aged 2–18 years
and includes evidence of the relationship between sedentary behavior and health risk
indicators, an overview of public health recommendations, the prevalence of key sedentary
behaviors, evidence of correlates of sedentary behavior and the effectiveness of interventions
to reduce sedentary behaviors.
Evidence acquisition
Although this is a narrative style review and not systematic, where possible, findings
from relevant review papers were summarized and a search of more recent literature
was performed using computer-based databases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, ERIC,
PsycINFO, Social Science Index, SportDiscus, and Health Reference Center – Academic.
Evidence synthesis
Young people spend 2–4 hours per day in screen-based behaviors and 5–10 hours per
day sedentary. Ethnicity, sociodemographic status, having a TV set in the bedroom,
and parental behavior appear to be the most consistent correlates of TV viewing time;
however, few recent studies aiming to reduce TV viewing or sedentary time among young
people have been successful.
Conclusions
A growing body of evidence supports the development of public health recommendations
to limit the time spent in screen-based behaviors. More research is needed to examine
the prospective and experimental evidence of associations between overall sedentary
time and health, determinants of sedentary behaviors other than screen-based behaviors,
and interventions to reduce overall sedentary time or even alternative sedentary behaviors,
such as transport- or education-related sitting time.
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© 2011 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
