Physical Activity Assessment in an Italian Adult Population using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire.
Regular and adequate levels improve muscular and cardiorespiratory fitness, bone and functional health, reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases and depression and are a key determinant of energy expenditure, thus fundamental to energy balance and weight control.1-4 For these reasons, in 2010 World Health Organization (WHO) developed the global recommendations on PA for health1 : people aged >18 years should accumulate at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic PA throughout the week or do at least 75 minutes of vigorous intensity aerobic PA throughout the week or an equivalent combination of moderate and vigorous intensity activity.
All the subjects underwent lifestyle questionnaire administration and PA evaluation. From the original sample, after cleaning the data for missing and out-of-range values according to the IPAQ Research Committee,14 957 (422 men and 535 women) subjects represent the final sample of the study. Stratifying the sample by age, all the differences were statistically significant, except for the vigorous activities (Table 5). As a general remark, PA increased with age: subjects aged 18-30 years had the lowest levels of PA (1154 MET-min/week), while subjects aged >50 had the highest levels (3639 MET-min/week).
The multiple regression analysis showed that anthropometric and socio-demographic characteristics were significantly related to PA in different domains. People with lower educational level often perform more physically demanding work and probably do not have enough time for leisure-time PA. On the contrary, people having higher educational level have jobs that are more sedentary and have a tendency to be more physically active in leisure time due to greater knowledge about PA health benefits.
Obes Res Open J. 2016; 4(1): 1-10. doi: 10.17140/OROJ-4-127
