IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0149320.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

European Sitting Championship: Prevalence and Correlates of Self-Reported Sitting Time in the 28 European Union Member States

Author

Listed:
  • Anne Loyen
  • Hidde P van der Ploeg
  • Adrian Bauman
  • Johannes Brug
  • Jeroen Lakerveld

Abstract

Objective: Sedentary behaviour is increasingly recognized as an important health risk, but comparable data across Europe are scarce. The objective of this study was to explore the prevalence and correlates of self-reported sitting time in adults across and within the 28 European Union Member States. Methods: This study reports data from the Special Eurobarometer 412. In 2013, 27,919 randomly selected Europeans (approximately 1000 per Member State) were interviewed face-to-face. Sitting time on a usual day was self-reported and dichotomised into sitting less- and more than 7.5 hours per day. Uni- and multivariate odds ratios of sitting more than 7.5 hours per day were assessed by country and socio-demographic variables using binary logistic regression analyses. The analyses were stratified by country to study the socio-demographic correlates of sitting time within the different countries. Results: A total of 26,617 respondents were included in the analyses. Median sitting time was five hours per day. Across Europe, 18.5 percent of the respondents reported to sit more than 7.5 hours per day, with substantial variation between countries (ranging from 8.9 to 32.1 percent). In general, northern European countries reported more sitting than countries in the south of Europe. ‘Current occupation’ and ‘age when stopped education’ were found to be the strongest correlates of sitting time, both across Europe and within most Member States. Compared to manual workers, the odds ratio of sitting more than 7.5 hours per day was 5.00 for people with white collar occupations, 3.84 for students, and 3.65 for managers. Conclusions: There is substantial variation in self-reported sitting time among European adults across countries as well as socio-demographic groups. While regular surveillance of (objectively measured) sedentary behaviour is needed, the results of this study provide entry points for developing targeted interventions aimed at highly sedentary populations, such as people with sedentary occupations.

Suggested Citation

  • Anne Loyen & Hidde P van der Ploeg & Adrian Bauman & Johannes Brug & Jeroen Lakerveld, 2016. "European Sitting Championship: Prevalence and Correlates of Self-Reported Sitting Time in the 28 European Union Member States," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(3), pages 1-17, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0149320
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0149320
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0149320
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0149320&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0149320?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Menno Luijkx & Marco Helbich, 2019. "Neighborhood Walkability Is Not Associated with Adults’ Sedentary Behavior in the Residential Setting: Evidence from Breda, The Netherlands," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(18), pages 1-12, September.
    2. Anne Loyen & Tien Chey & Lina Engelen & Adrian Bauman & Jeroen Lakerveld & Hidde P van der Ploeg & Johannes Brug & Josephine Y Chau, 2018. "Recent trends in population levels and correlates of occupational and leisure sitting time in full-time employed Australian adults," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(4), pages 1-10, April.
    3. Lakerveld, Jeroen & Woods, Catherine & Hebestreit, Antje & Brenner, Hermann & Flechtner-Mors, Marion & Harrington, Janas M. & Kamphuis, Carlijn B.M. & Laxy, Michael & Luszczynska, Aleksandra & Mazzocc, 2020. "Advancing the evidence base for public policies impacting on dietary behaviour, physical activity and sedentary behaviour in Europe: The Policy Evaluation Network promoting a multidisciplinary approac," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    4. Charlotte Verdot & Benoît Salanave & Salomé Aubert & Andréa Ramirez Varela & Valérie Deschamps, 2022. "Prevalence of Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviors in the French Population: Results and Evolution between Two Cross-Sectional Population-Based Studies, 2006 and 2016," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-14, February.
    5. Roger Montenegro Mendoza & Reina Roa & Flavia Fontes & Ilais Moreno Velásquez & Hedley Quintana, 2023. "Physical Inactivity and Sedentary Behaviour among Panamanian Adults: Results from the National Health Survey of Panama (ENSPA) 2019," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(8), pages 1-15, April.
    6. Moreno-Llamas, Antonio & García-Mayor, Jesús & De la Cruz-Sánchez, Ernesto, 2020. "The impact of digital technology development on sitting time across Europe," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    7. Jason A Bennie & Katrien De Cocker & Jordan J Smith & Glen H Wiesner, 2020. "The epidemiology of muscle-strengthening exercise in Europe: A 28-country comparison including 280,605 adults," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-18, November.
    8. Szczuka, Zofia & Kulis, Ewa & Boberska, Monika & Banik, Anna & Kruk, Magdalena & Keller, Jan & Knoll, Nina & Scholz, Urte & Abraham, Charles & Luszczynska, Aleksandra, 2021. "Can individual, dyadic, or collaborative planning reduce sedentary behavior? A randomized controlled trial," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 287(C).
    9. H. Q. Chim & Mirjam G. A. oude Egbrink & Pascal W. M. Van Gerven & Renate H. M. de Groot & Bjorn Winkens & Hans H. C. M. Savelberg, 2020. "Academic Schedule and Day-to-Day Variations in Sedentary Behavior and Physical Activity of University Students," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(8), pages 1-16, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0149320. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.