Obesity can negatively influence walking cadence, reducing the overall intensity of daily activities and increasing the risk of weight gain.
Purpose: Objectively describe the walking cadence of individuals' long-term post-bariatric surgery.
Methods: Fifty-eight participants, 51.2 ± 8.9 years old, with a BMI of 34.6 ± 10.1 kg/m2, 10.0 ± 3.1 years post-surgery wore an activPAL accelerometer for 7 consecutive days. Data was analyzed using participants' current BMI, dichotomized by obesity status, < or ≥ 30 kg/m2.
Results: On average, participants walked 5124 ± 2549 steps/day on weekdays and 6097 ± 2786 steps/day on weekend days (p = .003). Participants spent the majority (75%) of their daily steps at a slow-walking average cadence (non-obese: week = 65.3 ± 5.0 steps/min and weekend = 63.8 ± 6.7 steps/min; obese: week = 67.8 ± 8.2 steps/min and weekend = 63.3 ± 6.9 steps/min), with no difference between groups for week or weekend days (p = .153 and .774). The cadence of participants with obesity was significantly lower on weekends compared to weekdays for walking events > 30 s (p = .002) and > 60 s (p = .008) in duration. Weekday cadence of participants without obesity was similar to weekend day cadence across all walking event durations. The majority of walking events occurred below 30 s in duration for all participants.
Conclusions: Long-term post-bariatric surgery, movement occurs in short duration bouts at a slow-walking cadence for the majority of movement. Individuals without obesity had similar movement patterns from week to weekend days while participants with obesity significantly lowered their cadence on weekend days.
Keywords: Cadence; Long term; Obesity; Physical activity; RYGB.