Temporal Trends and Recent Correlates in Sedentary Behaviors among Chinese Adults from 2002 to 2010–2012

Abstract

Evidence suggests that more time spent in sedentary behaviors (SB) increases health risk independent of physical activities. Trends in SB among adults have not been fully described in China, and the sociodemographic correlates of SB have not been systematically evaluated either. This study examined the temporal trends of SB among 184,257 adults (2002: n = 52,697, 2010–2012: n = 131,560) using data from the China National Nutrition and Health Survey in 2002 and 2010–2012, and analyzed the recent correlates of SB in Chinese adults. Overall, an increase (+0.29 h/d) was seen in total SB across the survey years, and there was a slight increase (+0.14 h/d) in leisure time SB and a decrease (−0.39 h/d) in occupational SB. From 2002 to 2012, the proportion of Chinese adults whose total SB time over 4 h/d increased from 35.4% to 43.0%, and the proportion of leisure SB time over 3 h/d increased from 42.0% to 48.0%, and the proportion of occupational SB time over 4 h/d decreased from 63.4% to 53.0%. Male, urban areas, employed, unmarried, and with higher educational and family economic level were all positively associated with high sedentary time (HST) in 2010–2012. These trends and correlates are important for health policy in China and other countries that are facing similar challenges.

The Differential Impact of Screen Time on Children’s Wellbeing

“…Results of the current study also show that boys engage in significantly more screen time than their female counterparts (1.67 h versus 1.41 h) which, again, is consistent with previous findings [15,59]. Boys have repeatedly been shown to accrue more screen time and be less likely to adhere to screen time thresholds than girls [60][61][62]. Again, recent Irish research reports boys from disadvantaged schools accumulating significantly more screen time (3.01 h) than girls (2.27 h) [14].…”

Factors influencing nature interactions vary between cities and types of nature interactions

“…Our finding where indirect interactions were the most common means of interacting with nature daily in both cities mirror findings from a study conducted in the United Kingdom , and could be an outcome of a modern urban lifestyle where people are spending more of their time indoors (Leech et al, 1996;Matz et al, 2014). Such quantifiable differences in time-activity patterns are consistent with broader global and societal trends such as more time spent on sedentary behaviours (Ding et al, 2020;Guthold et al, 2018;Kohl et al, 2012), increased time spent working from home (Turcotte, 2010) and extended screen time in adolescents (Cui et al, 2011;Leatherdale & Ahmed, 2011).…”

Current status of premature mortality from four non-communicable diseases and progress towards the Sustainable Development Goal target 3.4: a population-based study in northeast China, 2004–2017

“…Notably, urban males were the most far offtrack from the goal. Although urban males are well educated, have a higher income, and better access to medical facilities, they also have more unhealthy diets, more stressful daily activities, less physical exercise, longer sedentary time, and heavier air pollution than rural males [29][30][31]. Consistently, hypertension, carotid atherosclerosis, and overweight/obesity all showed a predisposition for urban residents and males in China [24,29,32].…”