Background: Despite robust evidence demonstrating sociodemographic characteristics may underly some of the disparities in physical activity observed among children and adolescents, the often-overlooked nexus of potential interactions between these characteristics warrants further exploration. This study explored the intersectionality of gender, race/ethnicity, parental education, and household income in relation to device-measured physical activity volume and intensity in a nationally representative sample of US children and adolescents.
Methods: Cross-sectional data from 3 cycles of the US National Health and Nutrition Survey (2011-2012; 2012 National Youth Fitness Survey; and 2013-2014) were used. A total of 6116 participants (49% female) between 3 and 17 years of age wore an accelerometer on their nondominant wrist for 7 days. Monitor-independent movement summary units were used to represent physical activity volume and intensity. A Social Jeopardy Index was created to represent increasing levels of intersecting social disadvantages based on combinations of gender, race/ethnicity, parental education, and household income-to-poverty ratio tertiles. Generalized linear regression models were computed.
Results: The results showed social disadvantages become increasingly evident among children and adolescents during the most intense 60 minutes of daily physical activity (B = -48.69 [9.94] SE, P < .001), but disparities in total volume were not observed (B = 34.01 [44.96] SE, P = .45).
Conclusions: Findings suggest that patterns of physical activity behavior may differ based on intersecting sociodemographic characteristics-more socially disadvantaged children and adolescents appear to accumulate activity at lighter intensities. Collecting contextual information about device-measured physical activity represents an important next step for gaining insight into these sociodemographic differences.
Keywords: NHANES; accelerometry; epidemiology; social determinants; youth.