Assessment of physical activity level in office employees groups in Albania

Abstract

Bozo D, Pano G, Çitozi R. Assessment of physical activity level in office employees groups in Albania. J. Hum. Sport Exerc. Vol.8, No. Proc2, pp. S152-S164, 2013. Insufficient PA is very common in office employees and due to this they are at higher risk for metabolic, cardiovascular and many more other health related risk factor diseases. There is a lack of data regarding the PA level of office employees groups in Albania. Thus the aim of this paper was to identify the PA level in typical representative groups of this category. A total of 164 randomly selected office employees, out of which 97 (52 females and 45 males) from one mobile company and 67 (37 females and 30 males) from a bank, participated in this study. An Albanian modified and adapted version of the an International Physical Activity Questionnaire was used to assess some indicators dealing with all kinds of PA jobs, everyday life and leisure and time expenditure on PAs of different intensity. The weekly activity level was measured through time, frequency and intensity, expressed in MET*minute/week. The subjects were classified in 3 main PA categories: HIGH (1500-3000 MET*min), MODERATE (600-1300 MET*min) and LOW (<600 MET*min). The results show that both groups declared an average PA Level classified under the LOW category. The values of the mobile company group was around 950 MET*min with a difference between the genders of 280 MET*min (1070 in males and 790 in females); while the bank group revealed lower values, i.e. 890 MET*min as average and a difference of 220 MET*min between the two genders (980 in males against 760 of females). The differences between the two groups under investigation can be explained through various factors such as the general PA gender differences, type of sedentary work, type of different work position/role and working spaces. These results may be also a consequence of improper individual activity habits, low information and awareness of health benefits of PA and lack of proper promotion for a healthy and active lifestyle.

Level of physical activity of health professionals in a district hospital in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

“…Levels of physical activity amongst the young and adults seem to have shown a steady decline in the last few decades in many countries (French, Story & Jeffery 2001 ; Reilly et al 2004 ). According to Bozo, Pano and Citozi ( 2013 ), office employees in Albania engaged in insufficient physical activity of <600 MET-minutes per week as reported by health professionals in many studies. Amongst the participants, women were found to be more physically inactive than men (Bozo et al 2013 ).…”

“…According to Bozo, Pano and Citozi ( 2013 ), office employees in Albania engaged in insufficient physical activity of <600 MET-minutes per week as reported by health professionals in many studies. Amongst the participants, women were found to be more physically inactive than men (Bozo et al 2013 ).…”

Sedentary behaviour and physical activity levels in employees of Khyber Medical University Peshawar

“…In 29% of office workers, MPA was noted and HPA was reported in 11% participants in current study. 20 According to another study which was conducted on physicians using the same tool reported that 68.4% participants were on LPA category, 'MPA' was noted in 28.4% of the subjects and HPA was noted in only 3.2%. Males were reported more active in 'HPA' 4.3% and female 1.3%.…”

D4-3 Perceived Individual and Environmental Factors For Physical Activity Participation among Office Workers

“…Sedentary behavior associated with the risk of obesity, having chronic diseases and premature deaths. Office workers who exposed to long period of workplace sitting that did not require high physical efforts workload were more likely to have NCDs than those who did not exposed (Biernat, Tomaszewski, & Milde, 2010;BOZO, Pano, & Çitozi, 2013;van Uffelen et al, 2010). Pan et al in 2009 reported that the factors influenced on physical inactivity can be classified into individual and environmental perspective (Pan et al, 2009).…”