PROACTIVITY – PROspective associations of ACTIVITY with obesity, physical fitness, and cardiometabolic health

Background: Physical activity (PA) during childhood has a myriad of well-established health benefits.

However, there is a lack of longitudinal observational studies with device-based (i.e., accelerometers) measures of PA from preschool to late childhood. It is relevant to investigate such data as it is known that childhood health tracks throughout life.

Despite the potential of device-based measures of PA, a major challenge is the lack of harmonization in the field, with no consensus or populational values of device-based PA in preschoolers.Aims: The PROACTIVITY project aims to: (i) investigate the prospective associations of early PA performance (at 4.5-years of age) with body composition, physical fitness, and cardiometabolic health in later childhood (9.5-years of age); and (ii) to derive populational-standardized PA intensity metrics for preschoolers.Study design: This project is built upon data collected in two studies.

MINISTOP is a randomized controlled trial which was extended with follow-up observational accelerometer and health data in 214 Swedish children (the group allocation will be taken into account in the analyses). The SUNRISE consortium includes preschoolers from >30 countries with accelerometer recordings.

Novel open-source algorithms and analytical approaches will be used to answer the research objectives with these data.Significance: This project will investigate important research gaps related to the prospective associations of early PA with future health, inference of the direction of the associations, and harmonization of device-based measures of PA.

The populational PA intensity metrics developed in the PROACTIVITY project will be made available so that any researcher / clinician without technical expertise can use them.

Thus, due to these metrics, minutes per day of sedentary behavior, light, moderate, and vigorous PA can be calculated and compared to populational values.