Physical Inactivity Levels of European Adolescents in 2002, 2005, 2013, and 2017

Jorge López-Fernández; Alejandro López-Valenciano; Gemma Pearce; Robert J Copeland; Gary Liguori; Alfonso Jiménez; Xian Mayo

doi:10.3390/ijerph20043758

Physical Inactivity Levels of European Adolescents in 2002, 2005, 2013, and 2017

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Feb 20;20(4):3758. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20043758.

Authors

Jorge López-Fernández^{1

2}, Alejandro López-Valenciano³, Gemma Pearce⁴, Robert J Copeland^{5

6}, Gary Liguori⁷, Alfonso Jiménez^{2

5

8}, Xian Mayo^{2

8}

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Sport Sciences, Universidad Europea de Madrid, 28670 Madrid, Spain.
² GO fit LAB, Ingesport, 28003 Madrid, Spain.
³ Department of Education Science, Universidad Cardenal Herrera-CEU, CEU Universities, 12006 Castellón de la Plana, Spain.
⁴ Centre for Healthcare Research, Coventry University, Coventry CV1 5FB, UK.
⁵ Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield S1 1WB, UK.
⁶ The National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine, Sheffield S9 3TY, UK.
⁷ Department of Movement Sciences, University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL 32514, USA.
⁸ Observatory of Healthy & Active Living of Spain Active Foundation, Centre for Sport Studies, King Juan Carlos University, 28942 Madrid, Spain.

Abstract

Sport and Physical Activity (PA) Special Eurobarometer surveys may inform of the physical inactivity (PIA) levels in the European Union (EU). This study aimed to analyse the PIA levels of EU adolescents (15-17 years) in four time points, according to gender. The data were from 2002, 2005, 20013, and 2017 Special Eurobarometers. Adolescents were categorised as "Inactive" when performing less than 60 min/day of moderate to vigorous PA on average. A χ² test was used to compare the levels of PIA between survey years. PIA levels between gender were analysed using a Z-score test for two population proportions. PIA levels ranged from 67.2% for boys (59.4% to 71.5%;) to 76.8% for girls (76.0% to 83.4) across the time points. Adjusted standardised residuals revealed a decrease in the observed levels versus the expected for 2005 (whole sample: -4.2; boys: -3.3) and an increase for 2013 (whole sample: +2.9; boys: +2.5). Boys presented lower PIA levels than girls in all years (p ≤ 0.003), but descriptively, the difference progressively decreased (from 18.4% to 11.8%). No significant reductions in PIA levels were observed between 2002 and 2017, and girls reported consistently higher levels of PIA than boys.

Keywords: MVPA; active behaviour; national policies; physical activity; youth.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adolescent
European Union
Exercise
Female
Humans
Male
Sedentary Behavior*
Sports*
Surveys and Questionnaires

Grants and funding

This paper arises from the mobility program “On the Move” granted by the Society of Spanish Researchers in the United Kingdom to X.M. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, interpretation of data, the decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.