Perceiving reduced physical activity during COVID-19 lockdown is related to lower quality of life: a cross-sectional study with young adults

Abstract

Physical activity and social participation are positively related to mental health and represent resources that strengthen individuals’ resilience. However, the measures aiming to contain the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic included restrictions regarding these health resources. For many people, stay-at-home orders had a negative effect on mental health and health-related behaviors such as physical activity. Young adults seem to be a particularly vulnerable group. The study aimed to examine the relationship between changes in physical activity and perceived quality of life in young adults during lockdown conditions. We conducted an online survey during the second lockdown in Germany and assessed perceived changes in physical activity, social activities, quality of life (QoL), the perceived burden of changes in social activities, and current QoL in 212 young adults (63.7% women, mean age = 23.46, standard deviation = 3.63). Young adults that maintained or increased their physical activity level under lockdown conditions, rated their current QoL higher and perceived a less negative change of their QoL during lockdown compared to those with decreased physical activity. Furthermore, those who rated that their physical activity levels did not change or increased, perceived the reduction of their social activities as less burdening. The results indicate that physical activity is a beneficial health resource during lockdown conditions. This highlights the importance of gaining knowledge regarding the antecedents of reducing physical activity and developing strategies that support young adults to be physically active in challenging times such as the pandemic (e.g. ehealth/mhealth approaches).

Effects of Different Types of High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) on Endurance and Strength Parameters in Children and Adolescents

“…They deteriorated by around 10% from 1975 to 2003 [ 7 , 8 ], before stagnating at a relatively low level until today [ 9 , 10 ]. Negative impacts on physical, psychosocial and mental health are the likely consequences [ 11 , 12 ]. Physical activity and fitness interventions have only been moderately effective in this context [ 13 ].…”

Role of nutrition in minimizing mental and health-related issues during COVID-19: a systematic literature review

“…Among those selected study, most of the study found cross-sectional study (Patra et al , 2020; Phillipou et al , 2020; Ripon et al , 2020; Sankar et al , 2020; López-Moreno et al , 2020; Al-Domi et al , 2021; Ali et al , 2021; Sińska et al , 2021; Vu et al , 2021; Wei et al , 2021; Ceulemans et al , 2021; Chi et al , 2021; Hammami et al , 2021; Jonikas et al , 2021; Madan et al , 2021; Niermann, Bollenbach and Kanning, 2022; Lorenzoni et al , 2022; Mekkawy, 2022), retrospective study (Błaszczyk-Bębenek et al , 2020; Almandoz et al , 2021; Valenzise et al , 2021), literature review (Neira et al , 2021; Andersson et al , 2022), review and mini-review (Arora and Grey, 2020; Bennett et al , 2021; Scapaticci et al , 2022), longitudinal study (Zhang et al , 2020a, 2020b; Herle et al , 2021; Sebastian et al , 2021) and online survey included (Vally and Helmy, 2021; Wilson et al , 2021; Woodruff et al , 2021).…”

“…Mental health, dietary habits and physical activity were studied in (Ripon et al , 2020; Ali et al , 2021; Chi et al , 2021; Wei et al , 2021; Wilson et al , 2021; Woodruff et al , 2021; Lorenzoni et al , 2022), Mental health and weight-related behavior included in (Almandoz et al , 2021; Madan et al , 2021; Valenzise et al , 2021), physical activity and motivation (Andersson et al , 2022; Niermann, Bollenbach and Kanning, 2022), health behavior (Arora and Grey, 2020; Al-Domi et al , 2021; Woodruff et al , 2021), lifestyle and dietary habits (Sankar et al , 2020; Bennett et al , 2021; Madan et al , 2021; Neira et al , 2021; Scapaticci et al , 2022), mental health status in pregnant and lactating (Zhang et al , 2020a, 2020b; Ceulemans et al , 2021), eating behavior (Błaszczyk-Bębenek et al , 2020; Phillipou et al , 2020; Herle et al , 2021; Sińska et al , 2021; Vu et al , 2021), mental health and behavioral health disorder (Hammami et al , 2021; Jonikas et al , 2021; Vally and Helmy, 2021; Mekkawy, 2022), food habits (López-Moreno et al , 2020) and school closure and screen (Patra et al , 2020; Woodruff et al , 2021).…”

“…There are three studies from the UK (Ceulemans et al , 2021; Herle et al , 2021; Wilson et al , 2021), four studies from India (Patra et al , 2020; Sankar et al , 2020; Madan et al , 2021; Sebastian et al , 2021) and one study from Pakistan (Ali et al , 2021), Texas TX (Almandoz et al , 2021), Ireland, Norway, Switzerland, The Netherland (Ceulemans et al , 2021), New Jersey and New York (Jonikas et al , 2021), Spain (López-Moreno et al , 2020), German (Niermann, Bollenbach and Kanning, 2022), Australia (Phillipou et al , 2020), Italy (Valenzise et al , 2021; Lorenzoni et al , 2022), UAE (Vally and Helmy, 2021), Vietnam (Vu et al , 2021), Canada (Woodruff et al , 2021), one study from Tunisia (Hammami et al , 2021), one study from Jordan (Al-Domi et al , 2021), two studies from Poland (Błaszczyk-Bębenek et al , 2020; Sińska et al , 2021), Egypt (Mekkawy, 2022), one study from Bangladesh (Ripon et al , 2020) and three studies from China (Zhang et al , 2020a, 2020b; Chi et al , 2021; Wei et al , 2021) are included in this review paper.…”

“…Regular exercise may reduce health risks, increase immunity and well-being and reduce stress and anxiety. Regular physical activity with 2,500 METs/week helped them cope with negative emotions (Zhang et al, 2020a(Zhang et al, , 2020bNiermann et al, 2022). Similar finding reported by Chi et al (2021) that high physical activity associated with lower level of insomnia (b = À0.5 [À0.10, À0.01], p = 0.020), anxiety (b = À0.15 [À0.25, À0.05], p = 0.004) and depressive symptoms (b = À0.17 [À0.27, À0.08], p<0.001).…”