Effects of reallocating physical activity, sedentary behaviors, and sleep on mental health in adolescents☆
Section snippets
Procedure
This study used a sample of adolescents participating in the COMPASS (Cannabis, Obesity, Mental health, Physical activity, Alcohol, Smoking, Sedentary Behavior) study. COMPASS is a prospective cohort study (2012–2021) that collects data from full school samples of students in grades 9 through 12 attending participating secondary schools across Canada. A full description of the COMPASS host study methods is available in print (Leatherdale, Brown, et al., 2014) or online (www.compass.uwaterloo.ca
Data analysis
The distributions of the physical activity, screen time, homework, and sleep scores were examined. Based on the observed distributions of responses, students with missing data as well as unrealistic or outlier responses were removed. Sample characteristics were calculated and linear mixed models with random intercept were used to examine the impact of changes in MVPA, sleep, homework, and screen time on anxiety, depression and flourishing scores. All models controlled for sex, province, grade,
Results
Students with missing values on mental health scales (n = 3679) and covariates (n = 2042) were removed. Using outlier criteria of three standard deviations from the mean, students who indicated average daily MVPA (n = 293) or homework time (n = 174) greater than 6 h or sleep time (n = 2969) less than 3 h were removed, as were students who indicated a total activity time (including physical activity, screen time, homework, and sleep) of more than 24 h (n = 5040), resulting in a final analytic
Discussion
This study investigated how displacing 15 min of MVPA, sedentary behavior, or sleep with equivalent time in another behavior was associated with mental health outcomes in adolescents using isotemporal substitution modelling. There was evidence of non-linear associations between sleep and mental health, consistent with previous research (Zhang et al., 2017). Consequently, all findings were stratified across sleep duration. While similarities emerged between those meeting sleep guidelines and
Conclusion
There is a wealth of support for increasing MVPA, reducing sedentary time, and getting adequate sleep to promote positive mental health outcomes among adolescents (Biddle et al., 2019; Hoare et al., 2016; Zhang et al., 2017). However, due to the finite time available to engage in these behaviors and engaging in one behavior necessarily means displacing time spent in another, the effects of replacing one health behavior with another on mental health is of interest. Taken together, our findings
Declaration of competing interest
Editorial Disclosure:
In his role as Founding Editor, Guy Faulkner had no involvement in the peer-review of this article and had no access to information regarding its peer-review. Full responsibility for the editorial process for this article was delegated to Adrian Taylor.
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This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada through a postdoctoral fellowship awarded to JG. The COMPASS study has been supported by a bridge grant from the CIHR Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes (INMD) through the “Obesity – Interventions to Prevent or Treat” priority funding awards (OOP-110788; awarded to SL), an operating grant from the CIHR Institute of Population and Public Health (IPPH) (MOP-114875; awarded to SL), a CIHR project grant (PJT-148562; awarded to SL), a CIHR bridge grant (PJT-149092; awarded to KP/SL), a CIHR project grant (PJT-159693; awarded to KP), and by a research funding arrangement with Health Canada (#1617-HQ-000012; contract awarded to SL).