Recognition of 16–18-year-old adolescents for guiding physical activity interventions: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Adolescence is a rapid life stage requiring special attention wherein personal autonomy is developed to govern independent lifestyles. Unhealthy lifestyles are integral to prevailing adolescent physical inactivity patterns. Understudied 16–18-year-olds were investigated to establish physical activity prevalences and influencing health-related lifestyle factors. Adolescents were recruited randomly across 2017–2019 from Farnborough College of Technology and North Kent College, UK. Demographic and health-related lifestyle information were gathered anonymously and analysed using SAS® 9.4 software. Among the 414 adolescents included (48.3% male and 51.7% female), the mean (standard deviation (SD)) age was 16.9 (0.77). Approximately 15.2% smoked and 20.8% were overweight/obese. There were 54.8% perceiving themselves unfit and 33.3% spent >4 h/day on leisure-time screen-based activity. Around 80.4% failed to meet the recommended fruit/vegetable daily intake and 90.1% failed to satisfy UK National Physical Activity Guidelines, particularly females (p = 0.0202). Physical activity levels were significantly associated with gender, body mass index, smoking status, leisure sedentary screen-time, fruit/vegetable consumption and fitness perceptions. Those who were female, overweight/obese, non-smoking, having poor fitness perceptions, consuming low fruit/vegetables and engaging in excess screen-based sedentariness were the groups with lowest physical activity levels. Steering physical activity-oriented health interventions toward these at-risk groups in colleges may reduce the UK’s burden of adolescent obesity.