PhD, Associate Professor A.A. Snigirev¹
PhD, Associate Professor M.N. Malkov¹
A.Y. Nikolaev¹
Dr. Biol., Professor S.I. Loginov^1
1Surgut State University, Surgut

Keywords: physical activity, gender groups, sedentary behavior, IPAQ.

Background. For the first two decades of the new millennium the global physical activity has been reported to further fall in every population group including the university student communities despite the common belief that this social group is the most active and mobile [13]. A special priority in the physical activation initiatives will be given to modern training technologies and school physical education and sports design and management models. These physical activity initiatives need to be based on a reliable scientific database on the actual physical activity and physically inactive (sedentary) behaviors in the student communities, with such data obtainable by questionnaire surveys including the internationally accepted and popular IPAQ [9] that have been successfully used in many countries [5, 2] to find that many students’ physical activity varies far under the bottom levels recommended by the WHO and the College of Sports Medicine (150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity or 75 minutes of high-intensity physical activity per a week); with only 7% of student population found reasonably active, and 25.8% inactive for a long time.

The IPAQ surveys in many countries have found rapid expansions of physical inactivity with sedentary behavior/ lifestyles (the relatively new terms for the global research community) [12]. Sedentary lifestyle – that has lately become a subject to special ​research – is interpreted as the alert but dominantly sitting or reclined inactive lifestyle with the energy cost of ≤1.5 METs [7] that gives rise to cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, obesity and related mortality growth, with the sedentary-lifestyle-related health risks found to be little mitigated by a moderate-intensity physical activity practiced on an irregular basis [10]. The physical activity versus sedentary lifestyle rating studies and analyses are relatively new, and the relevant research shall be in special priority in analyses of the modern social lifestyles.

Objective of the study was to survey the physical activity and sedentary lifestyle in the Surgut university student community versus the relevant IPAQ data reported by the EU.

Methods and structure of the study. We randomly sampled for the survey the Surgut university students (n=376) including the 19.2±1.7 years old males (n=160, 42.6%) and 19.5±1.7 years old females (n= 216, 57.4%) who gave their written informed consent for the survey run in 2015-2016. The sample was surveyed by a Russian version of the online IPAQ on the energy and time costs of their low-, moderate- and high-intensity physical activity for the last 7 days classified by 4 standard domains (work, transport, homework/ gardening and leisure). The survey data were processed as recommended by the IPAQ standard [9] using a special software toolkit [1].

Results and discussion. The survey rated roughly one of three students with low physical activity, one of two with moderate-intensity physical activity and one of five with high-intensity physical activity: see Figure 1 hereunder. The physical activity domains were found gender-specific, with the males rated higher on the work and high-intensity physical activity scales; and females rated higher on the homework, moderate-intensity physical activity and weekend high-intensity physical activity scales (p <0.05). No significant gender differences were found on the leisure, walking and total physical activity scales.

Figure 1. Physical activity intensity rates of the sample (A) and domain-specific physical activity (B)

* p <0.05

Table 1. Detailed gender-specific physical activity ranked by the intensity classes, domains and sedentary lifestyle, min/ week, X̅; 0.95 CI

Note: HPA high-intensity physical activity, MPA moderate-intensity physical activity, LPA low-intensity physical activity, X̅ arithmetic mean, 0.95 CI confidence interval; * p <0.05 for gender group difference

The physical activity data ranked by 4 quartiles generated the quartile-specific low, moderate and high-intensity physical activity values. No one was found to sit 3 hours per day in quartile 1. The physically inactive low-intensity physical activity groups were found to grow 28.6 to 40.4% and 25.7 to 40.3% in the female and male groups in the 3-6 and 6-9 daily hour quartiles, respectively. Within the domains, an ANOVA analysis found no correlation between physical activity and age in the male and female groups; although the male physical activity was found to correlate with the body mass index (BMI) in the homework F (44, 114) = 1.74; p = 0.0102) and leisure F (52, 106) = 2.4859; p = 0.0000) domains. The male moderate physical activity, total physical activity and walking energy costs were also BMI-dependent (F (59, 99) = 1.4759; p = 0.0436), F (22, 125) = 1.8324; p = 0.0505), F (50, 98) = 1.4715; p = 0.0525), respectively. No such correlations were found in the female group.

The physical activity versus age profiling analysis found nonlinear regressions in the work, transport, walking, total physical activity and high-intensity physical activity domains in the male group. The female group was tested with no correlation in the work and high-intensity physical activity domains, and the male group in the transportation and total physical activity domains. The homework and high-intensity physical activity energy costs in the male group are described by the following regression equations: y = 9536-861x + 19.9x2 (r = -0.2034; p = 0.0099) and y = -8723 + 1043x-23.16x2 (r = 0.2575; p = 0.0010), respectively. In the female group, the energy costs in the transportation, walking and total physical activity domains are described by equations y = 9536 + 383x-11.08x2, r = -2614; p = 0.0361; and y = 3956-220x + 3.0x2, r = -0, 2085; p = 0.0021; y = 6190-344x + 5.83x2, r = -0.1522; p = 0.0253, respectively. And the male high-intensity physical activity is estimated by y = -3283 + 425x-7.23x2, r = 0.1578; p = 0.0463.

Discussion. Analyses of the recent research literature on the university students' physical activity show an uncontrollable growth of the sedentary behaviors increasingly referred to as the "sedentary epidemic" [6]. Thus the leisure-time students’ low-intensity physical activity on the verge of physical inactivity is reported at 23% for the North-Western Europe, 30% for the Central and Eastern Europe, 39% for the Mediterranean countries and 44% for the developing countries [8], with a higher-intensity leisure-time physical activity in the student communities found to clearly correlate with the individual heath agendas and issues. However, the awareness of the physical activity being correlated with health standards still largely fails to motivate students for active lifestyles since only 40-60% of the samples were found to know the incidence of cardiovascular diseases being physical activity dependent.

The gender- and age-specific IPAQ survey data of the Surgut sample was matched with that of the EU and Ukraine peer samples. The comparative analysis found 34% of the Surgut sample physically inactive – versus 12.5% and 14.9% in the Visegrad Four (Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary) and Ukraine, respectively [3]. Furthermore, 47% of the Surgut sample was tested with moderate-intensity physical activity versus 68.1% and 72.8% in the EU and Ukraine, respectively; whilst the high-intensity physical activity shares were found virtually the same: 19%, 19.4% and 12.3%, respectively.

The male and female physical activity in the Surgut sample averaged 1804 MET-min/ week and 1707 MET-min/ week, respectively – much lower than in the Croatian peer sample (3242 MET-min/ week and 2979 MET- min/ week, respectively). Note that the Croatian sample in its turn was rated physically underactive versus the Tuzla University (Bosnia and Herzegovina) sample with its female and male energy costs of 6013 MET-min / week and 4619 MET-min / week, respectively [4]. Weekday and weekend high-intensity physical activity of the Surgut females was rated at 1937 ± 592 min/ week and 649 ± 283 min/ week, and male high-intensity physical activity at 1741 ± 585 and 610 ± 300 min/ week, respectively. The Surgut females were found to stand higher on these scales than their peers from Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia [11] with their weekday and weekend physical activity reported at 432 ± 201 min / week and 297 ± 199 min/ week, respectively. The same is true for the male groups, with their weekday and weekend physical activity making up 393 ± 237 min / week and 313 ± 232 min / week, respectively. The female weekday high-intensity physical activity was tested significantly higher than the male high-intensity physical activity both in the Surgut (p = 0.0015) and the EU samples (p = 0.0000).

Conclusion. The gender- and age-specific questionnaire survey of the Surgut university students found their physical activity being very low regardless of the gender. Therefore, due institutional and academic physical education and sports service design and management projects are recommended to effectively encourage and promote health-centered higher-intensity physical activity as an alternative to the growing unhealthy sedentary lifestyles in the student communities.

References

1. Loginov S.I., Devitsyin I.N., Nikolaev A.Yu. IPAQ Automated Internet Physical Activity Survey Program. Certificate of state registration of a computer program. No. 2015661001, ROSPATENT. Moscow, 2015.
2. Bergier B., Tsos A., Bergier J. Factors determining physical activity of Ukrainian students. Ann. Agric. Environ. Med. 2014. 21(3). pp. 613–616. doi: https://doi.org/10.5604/12321966.1120612.
3. Bergier J., Tsos A., Popovych D., Bergier B., Niźnikowska E. et al. Level of and Factors Determining Physical Activity in Students in Ukraine and the Visegrad Countries. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health. 2018. 15(8). pii: E1738. doi: 10.3390/ijerph15081738.
4. Cosic-Mulahasanovic I., Nozinovic-Mujanovic A., Mujanovic E., Atikovic A. Level of physical activity of the students at the University of Tuzla according to IPAQ. Centr. Europ. J. Sport Sci. Med. 2018. 21(1). pp. 23–30. DOI: 10.18276/cej.2018.1-03.
5. Dąbrowska-Galas M., Plinta R., Dąbrowska J., Skrzypulec-Plinta V. Physical activity in students of the Medical University of Silesia in Poland. Phys. Ther. 2013. 93(3). pp. 384–392. doi: 10.2522/ptj.20120065.
6. De Craemer M., Chastin S., Ahrens W. et al. Data on determinants are needed to curb the sedentary epidemic in Europe. Lessons learnt from the DEDIPAC European knowledge hub. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health. 2018. 15(7). 1406. doi:10.3390/ijerph15071406.
7. Gibbs B.B., Hergenroeder A.L., Katzmarzyk P.T., Lee I.M., Jakicic J.M. Definition, measurement, and health risks associated with sedentary behavior. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc. 2015. 47(6). p. 1295–1300.
8. Haase A., Steptoe A., Sallis J.F., Wardle J. Leisure-time physical activity in university students from 23 countries: associations with health beliefs, risk awareness, and national economic development. Prev. Med. 2004. 39(1). pp. 182–190.
9. IPAQ Core Group. Guidelines for data processing and analysis of IPAQ – short and long forms, 2005. http://www.ipaq.ki.se/scoring.pdf. Data accessed May 23, 2015.
10. Matthews C.E. Minimizing Risk Associated With Sedentary Behavior: Should We Focus on Physical Activity, Sitting, or Both? J. Am. Coll. Cardiol. 2019. 73(16). 2073–2075. doi: 10.1016/j.jacc.2019.02.030.
11. Niźnikowska E., Bergier J., Bergier B. et al. Junger Study and evaluation of physical activity of youth from the Visegrad countries in relation to the WHO recommendations. Rocz. Panstw. Zakl. Hig. 2019. 70(2). pp. 155–160.
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13. Sevil J., Práxedes A., Abarca-Sos A., Del Villar F., García-González L. Levels of physical activity, motivation and barriers to participation in university students. J. Sports Med. Phys. Fitness. 2016. 56(10). pp. 1239–1248.

Corresponding author: snigirev_as@surgu.ru

Abstract

Objective of the study was to survey the physical activity and sedentary lifestyle in the Surgut university student community versus the relevant IPAQ data reported by the EU.

Methods and structure of the study. We randomly sampled for the survey the Surgut university students (n=376) including the 19.2±1.7 years old males (n=160, 42.6%) and 19.5±1.7 years old females (n= 216, 57.4%) who gave their written informed consent for the survey run in 2015-2016.

Results of the study and conclusions. The male and female physical activity in the Surgut sample averaged 1804 MET-min/ week and 1707 MET-min/ week, respectively – much lower than in the Croatian peer sample (3242 MET-min/ week and 2979 MET- min/ week, respectively). Note that the Croatian sample in its turn was rated physically underactive versus the Tuzla University (Bosnia and Herzegovina) sample with its female and male energy costs of 6013 MET-min / week and 4619 MET-min / week, respectively [4]. Weekday and weekend high-intensity physical activity of the Surgut females was rated at 1937 ± 592 min/ week and 649 ± 283 min/ week, and male high-intensity physical activity at 1741 ± 585 and 610 ± 300 min/ week, respectively. The Surgut females were found to stand higher on these scales than their peers from Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. The same is true for the male groups. The female weekday high-intensity physical activity was tested significantly higher than the male high-intensity physical activity both in the Surgut and the EU samples.

The gender- and age-specific questionnaire survey of the Surgut university students found their physical activity being very low regardless of the gender. Therefore, due institutional and academic physical education and sports service design and management projects are recommended to effectively encourage and promote health-centered higher-intensity physical activity as an alternative to the growing unhealthy sedentary lifestyles in the student communities