Insufficient physical activity levels and high screen time among adolescents: impact of associated factors

Abstract The scope of this study was to verify the impact of associated factors with insufficient physical activity levels and high screen time among adolescents. A cross-sectional and representative study was conducted with 899 public high school adolescents from São José dos Pinhais, Paraná, Brazil. It involved measurement of physical activity levels and screen time and classification according to the norms of the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics. The factors associated with insufficient physical activity levels and high screen time were gender, sexual maturation, social support and self-efficacy in terms of physical activity. Poisson regression was applied to test the associations. Population attributable fraction (PAF) and relative risk reduction (RRR) calculated the impact of associated factors with insufficient physical activity levels and high screen time among adolescents. In the combined presence of insufficient physical activity levels with high screen time, the female sex presented PAF = 13.04, a post-pubertal stage PAF = 9.91 and social support presented RRR = 31.00. The findings suggest that being female and post-pubescent are risk factors, while social support is a protective factor, for combined insufficient physical activity levels and high screen time among adolescents.