Most young people do not meet the three 24-Hour Movement Guidelines

1. This study found that overall, 7.12% of youth met all three 24-hour movement guidelines, whereas 19.21% met none of the movement guidelines.

2. Furthermore, adolescents, girls, and those from countries with a lower human development index were less likely to meet the three 24-hour movement guidelines.

Evidence Rating Level: 1 (Excellent)

Physical activity, screen time, and sleep duration are behaviors that are co-dependent because they are distributed across a 24-hour period. These three behaviors provide the rationale for the development of the 24-Hour Movement Guidelines. In youth (3-18 years), meeting all three of these guidelines has been associated with physical, psychosocial and cognitive benefits. However, there has not been an analysis investigating how a country’s human development index (HDI), age, or sex moderate this adherence. Consequently, the present systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the adhere to the overall guidelines as well as factors affecting adherence.

Of 17,551 screened records, 63 (n=387,437 participants) were included between January 2016 and May 2021. Studies were included if they investigated the adherence to the 24-hour movement guidelines in healthy participants aged 3-18 years. Studies were excluded if they were conducted exclusively with overweight/obese participants, or if they had physical or mental disorders. Risk of bias was assessed using the Quality Assessment Tool for Observational Cohort and Cross-sectional studies. A random-effects model was used to pool the prevalence of multiple studies.

Results demonstrated that overall, 7.12% of youth met all three 24-hour movement guidelines, and 19.21% met none of them. Furthermore, adolescents, girls, and those from countries with a lower Human Development Index were less likely to meet the three 24-hour movement guidelines. However, this study was limited by the fact that pooled estimates originated from cross-sectional data which prevents inference of causality. Nonetheless, these results suggest that the low adherence to current 24-hour movement guidelines may present a public health concern for youth and the need to promote these movement behaviours.

Click to read the study in Journal of Sport and Health Science

Image: PD

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