Sedentary behavior among Spanish children and adolescents: findings from the ANIBES study

The research Sedentary behavior among Spanish children and adolescents: findings from the ANIBES study analyzes the prevalence of sedentary behaviors among a representative sample of Spanish children and adolescents, which hypothesizes that in our country, as happens in the rest of the countries around, there is a high degree of children and adolescents who have a high use of screen devices.

In particular, the objectives of this study were focused on describing sedentary behaviors by sex and age (children and adolescents) and electronic device availability at home (TV, computer, console, etc.). Furthermore, the study examines the determinants for excess (≥2 h/day) screen time in total and by individual device.

The results of this work indicate that, except for using the internet for study reasons, for all other sedentary behaviors assessed in this research, the data suggest that Spanish children and adolescents reported more screen time on weekend days than on weekdays. In this way, 48.4 % of the total participants (children and adolescents aged 9 to 17 years) spent more than 2 hours per day in front of a screen every day of the week, 49.3 % exceeded this time during the week and 84.0 % during weekends.

Age appears as an important determinant of a sedentary lifestyle, as the group of adolescents spent more time on screen time than children.

Considering these results and the importance of reducing sedentary activities and behaviors, increased efforts to reduce time spent by children and adolescents sitting for non-study reasons are needed.

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