Changes in physical activity, sitting and sleep across the COVID-19 national lockdown period in Scotland

Abstract

We examine the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak and concomitant restrictions (i.e. lockdown) on 24-hour movement behaviors (i.e. physical activity, sitting, sleep) in a purposive sample of people (n=3230) reporting change recruited on-line. Participants' self-reported time spent in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), walking, sitting and sleep prior to lockdown (T1), during the first national lockdown (T2) and as restrictions initially started to ease (T3). For each 24-hour movement behavior, category-shifts are reported (positive, negative or did not change), as well as the percentage of participants recording positive/negative changes across clusters of behaviors and the percentage of participants recording improvement or maintenance of change across time. From T1 to T2 walking decreased, whereas MVPA, sitting and sleep increased, from T2 to T3 levels returned to pre-lockdown for all but MVPA. Participants who changed one behavior positively were more likely to report a positive change in another and 50% of those who reported positive changes from T1 to T2 maintained or improved further when restrictions started to ease. The current study showed that a large proportion of the sample reported positive changes, most notably those displaying initially poor levels of each behavior. These findings will inform salutogenic intervention development.

Longitudinal changes in physical activity during and after the first national lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic in England

“…This study is the first to examine the heterogeneity in longitudinal changes in physical activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on recent longitudinal studies, which reported a general decline in physical activity at the start of the pandemic, [10][11][12][13][14][15]25 our analyses identified six unique classes of growth trajectories of physical activity. Three of these classes were stable, showing little change over time, including the inactive (11.6%), the fairly active (22.2%) and the highly active (28.6%).…”

“…These differing trajectories may explain the inconsistent findings to date from longitudinal studies testing whether physical activity returned to pre-lockdown levels with the easing of restrictions in the UK. 10,11,14,15 This study further examined sociodemographic and health-related predictors of physical activity growth trajectories. When comparing the three stable classes (inactive, fairly active, and highly active; LC1-3), we found no gender, ethnic, or urban/rural differences between them.…”

“…Studies examining longer-term impacts on physical activity have provided mixed findings on whether physical activity returned to pre-lockdown levels with the initial easing of restrictions in the UK in May 2020. 10,11,14,15 To our knowledge, no studies have investigated changes in physical activity after further easing of restrictions in the UK in July 2020, meaning the longer term impact of lockdown measures on physical activity remains unclear. We do not know whether short-term disruptions to physical activity lead to long-term behavioural changes that could have adverse effects on health.…”

Sharing positive changes made during COVID-19 national lockdown: a multi-method co-production study

“…Following the process of Janssen et al (2020) we categorised the changes in sleep, sitting, walking and MVPA that participants had experienced from pre-lockdown to lockdown as either ‘positive change’, ‘negative change’, ‘no change’ and ‘already optimal’ based on previously reported categorizations for levels of physical activity (Ekelund et al, 2016), sitting (Stamatakis et al, 2019) and sleep (the National Sleep Foundation’s Sleep Duration Recommendations). As our interest is in cross-domain positive change we created an additive cross-domain positive change score as primary dependent variable.…”

“…Positive changes have also been observed in health-related behaviors, with Janssen et al (2020) reporting that although levels of sedentary behavior increased during lockdown, levels of moderate to vigorous activity increased and participants reported sleeping longer at night. It was also noted that participants who changed one behavior positively were also more likely to report a positive change in another demonstrating an important clustering in positive behavior change.…”