Cardiorespiratory fitness is associated with sickness absence and work ability.

BACKGROUND: Physical activity may sustain the physical aspect of work ability despite health problems such as musculoskeletal disorders and anxiety, which are the most prevalent work-related health problem in Europe. AIMS: To evaluate the association of Finnish municipal workers' accelerometer-measured physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness with their sickness absence levels, perceived work ability and health-related quality of life. METHODS: In connection with a randomized controlled trial recruiting 185 municipal workers, the authors performed baseline data analysis utilizing quantile regression to examine relationships between the outcome variables (all-cause sickness absence for 6 months, perceived work ability and health-related quality of life) and cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular fitness, and physical activity, and sedentary behaviour. All results were adjusted for age, sex and education level. RESULTS: The median duration of all-cause sickness absence over the preceding 6 months was lowest among participants with high cardiorespiratory fitness relative to the lowest tertile (2.0 versus 6.0 days; P < 0.05), and the highest perceived work ability was found among those with high or moderate cardiorespiratory fitness as compared to the lowest tertile (8.0 versus 7.0; P < 0.001). Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity correlated positively with the physical component of health-related quality of life (P < 0.01) and with a high cardiorespiratory-fitness level (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: High cardiorespiratory fitness was associated with decreased all-cause sickness absence days and improved work ability among municipal workers.

Kids Out; evaluation of a brief multimodal cluster randomized intervention integrated in health education lessons to increase physical activity and reduce sedentary behavior among eighth graders.

BACKGROUND: Most Finnish adolescents are not sufficiently physically active. Health education (HE) provides beneficial starting point for physical activity (PA) promotion in schools. This study evaluates an intervention integrated into three HE lessons to increase PA and reduce sedentary behavior (SB) among eighth graders. METHODS: All public secondary schools in Tampere, Finland participated and were randomized to intervention (INT, n = 7) and comparison group (COM, n = 7). In INT (690 students, 36 classes) the teachers (n = 14) implemented behavioral theory-driven content during three HE lessons. In COM (860 students, 41 classes) the teachers (n = 14) carried out standard lessons. The evaluation was based on RE-AIM: Effectiveness was assessed from baseline to 4 weeks (Follow-up 1) and Maintenance from 4 weeks to 7 months (Follow-up 2) with change in students' PA and SB and related psychosocial and parental factors. Methods included questionnaire, accelerometer and activity diary. Linear mixed models with baseline adjustments and random effect correction were used to compare the difference in change between INT and COM. Data on Reach, Adoption and Implementation were collected during the process. RESULTS: Intervention effects were only seen in the self-reported data favoring INT in the weekly number of days with at least 1 h of brisk leisure PA (0.3 [95%CI 0.1 to 0.6]), proportion of students meeting PA recommendations (4.1 [95%CI 2.5 to 5.7]), proportion of students reporting that their family sets limitations for screen time (5.4 [95%CI 3.3 to 7.4]) and in the number of days on which the students intended to do leisure PA in the following week (0.3 [95%CI 0.1 to 0.6]). The effects on PA were still beneficial for INT at Follow-up 2. The intervention reached 96% of the students, was adopted in all 7 schools and was implemented by 13/14 teachers in 35/36 classes. CONCLUSIONS: The intervention was feasible and had small favorable effects on students' self-reported PA, intention to do PA and family norm in screen time. The effects on PA persisted until Follow-up 2. It is likely that for greater impacts the HE lessons should have been supported with other actions without compromising feasibility. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT01633918 (June 27th, 2012).

Reliable recognition of lying, sitting, and standing with a hip-worn accelerometer.

Hip-worn accelerometers are widely used to estimate physical activity (PA), but the accuracy of acceleration threshold-based analysis is compromised when it comes to identifying stationary and sedentary behaviors, let alone classifying body postures into lying, sitting, or standing. The purpose of this study was to devise a novel method for accurate classification of body posture using triaxial data from hip-worn accelerometer and to evaluate its performance in free-living conditions against a thigh-worn accelerometer. The posture classification rested on 2 facts: constant Earth's gravity vector and upright walking posture. Thirty healthy adults wore a hip-mounted accelerometer and underwent an array of lying, sitting, standing, and walking tasks. Task type, their order, and length were randomly assigned to each participant. During walking, the accelerometer orientation in terms of gravity vector was taken as reference, and the angle for posture estimation (APE) was determined from the incident accelerometer orientation in relation to the reference vector. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve yielded an optimal cut-point APE of 64.9° (sensitivity 100% and specificity 100%) for lying and sitting and 11.6° (94.2%; 94.5%) for sitting and standing. In free-living conditions, high agreement (89.2% for original results and 90.4% for median-filtered results) in identifying sedentary periods (sitting and lying) was observed between the results from hip- and thigh-worn accelerometers. Walking provides a valid reference activity to determine the body posture. The proposed APE analysis of the raw data from hip-worn triaxial accelerometer gives accurate and specific information about daily times spent lying, sitting, and standing.

Alpine skiing is associated with higher femoral neck bone mineral density.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the influence of elite-level alpine skiing on athletes' skeleton. METHODS: Thirteen professional alpine skiers (9 males and 4 females with mean age of 22.6 years) and their age- and height matched control subjects were measured with dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (total body, lumbar spine, proximal femur, forearm) and quantitative ultrasound (hand). RESULTS: After adjusting for sex, age, weight and height, between-group differences were 15% (p=0.012) for the lumbar spine, 14% (p=0.022) for the femoral neck, 10% (p=0.051) for the total hip, and 11% (p=0.001) for the total body favoring the alpine skiers. However, after controlling for total body lean mass (~muscle mass), the group-differences lost their statistical significance, the borderline 10% difference (p=0.051) in femoral neck BMD excluded. CONCLUSION: Factors contributing to the alpine skiers' higher BMD may not only include the greater muscle mass (~stronger muscles) of these athletes but also a large number of impacts and possibly other high-frequency features in external loading generated by the high-speed skiing performance.

Physical activity measured by accelerometry among adolescents participating in sports clubs and non-participating peers.

The purpose of this descriptive cross-sectional study is to describe the amount and intensity of physical activity (PA) measured by accelerometry among adolescents participating in organized sports (SCP) and age-matched non-participating peers (NP). SCPs (332) and NPs (139) wore an accelerometer on the hip for seven days. PA was reported using the 1-min exponential moving average. The current moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) recommendation of at least an average of 60 min of MVPA daily was reached by 85% of SCPs and 45% of NPs (p < .001). During training days, the MVPA times among SCPs ranged from 153 ± 39 min in males and 109 ± 35 min in females participating in basketball to 113 ± 33 min in males participating in floorball and 83 ± 32 min in females participating in gymnastics. Sports participation contributes rather strongly to the accumulation of the recommended amount of MVPA. During training days, SCPs, except for females participating in gymnastics, accumulated more MVPA than NPs. During non-training days, only males participating in cross-country skiing and females participating in track and field accumulated more MVPA than NPs.HIGHLIGHTSPA of Finnish adolescents participating in nine different organized sports and age-matched non-participating peers was measured by accelerometry for one week and the results are reported using the 1-min exponential moving average.Adolescents participating in many organized sports accumulated more PA than non-participants; this was observed in meeting the PA recommendations, total amount of PA at different intensities, and step count.The current PA recommendation of at least an average of 60 min of MVPA per day was reached by 85% of SCPs and 45% of non-participating peers. Vigorous physical activity at least three times per week was incorporated by 96% of SCPs and 81% of NPs.During training days, males participating in soccer, basketball, and cross-country skiing spent more time in MVPA than females participating in the same sports. During non-training days, the time spent in MVPA was similar between males and females participating in sports clubs.