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Screen-based sedentary behavior and associations with functional strength in 6–15 year-old children in the United States
Edelson, Lisa R. Mathias, Kevin C. Fulgoni, Victor L. Karagounis, Leonidas G.
Edelson, Lisa R.
Mathias, Kevin C.
Fulgoni, Victor L.
Karagounis, Leonidas G.
Abstract
Background
Physical strength is associated with improved health outcomes in children. Heavier children tend to have lower functional strength and mobility. Physical activity can increase children’s strength, but it is unknown how different types of electronic media use impact physical strength.
Methods
Data from the NHANES National Youth Fitness Survey (NNYFS) from children ages 6–15 were analyzed in this study. Regression models were conducted to determine if screen-based sedentary behaviors (television viewing time, computer/video game time) were associated with strength measures (grip, leg extensions, modified pull-ups, plank) while controlling for potential confounders including child age, sex, BMI z-score, and days per week with 60+ minutes of physical activity. Grip strength and leg extensions divided by body weight were analyzed to provide measures of relative strength together with pull-ups and plank, which require lifting the body.
Results
The results from the regression models showed the hypothesized inverse association between TV time and all strength measures. Computer time was only significantly inversely associated with the ability to do one or more pull-ups.
Conclusions
This study shows that television viewing, but not computer/videogames, is inversely associated with measures of child strength while controlling for child characteristics and physical activity. These findings suggest that “screen time” may not be a unified construct with respect to strength outcomes and that further exploration of the potential benefits of reducing television time on children’s strength and related mobility is needed.
Keywords
children, sedentary behavior, screen time, strength, television, NHANES
Date
2016
Type
Journal article
Journal
BMC Public Health
Book
Volume
16
Issue
1
Page Range
1-10
Article Number
Article 116
ACU Department
Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research
Faculty of Health Sciences
Faculty of Health Sciences
Collections
Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
Published as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
License
CC BY 4.0
File Access
Open
Notes
© 2016 Edelson et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.