Elsevier

The Journal of Pediatrics

Volume 166, Issue 2, February 2015, Pages 474-476
The Journal of Pediatrics

Clinical and Laboratory Observations
Objectively Measured Physical Activity in Young Adults Born Preterm at Very Low Birth Weight

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2014.10.018Get rights and content

Unimpaired adults born preterm at very low birth weight (<1500 g) consistently have lower conditioning physical activity than those born at term. We used wrist-worn accelerometers to measure objectively physical activity in 57 very low birth weight and 47 control subjects aged 25 years. We found no difference in any physical activity measures.

Section snippets

Methods

Our participants come from the Helsinki Study of VLBW Adults, a case-control cohort.3 During a follow-up clinical visit in 2007-2008 all attending participants were offered an accelerometer, if available. A subsample of 57 unimpaired VLBW subjects and 47 controls had accelerometer measurements. Subjects with developmental delay, cerebral palsy, blindness, hearing deficit, or other condition potentially affecting mobility were excluded.

Anthropometry was measured, and all participants completed a

Results

Daily physical activity varied with the season; the participants were least active during wintertime. The majority of daytime was spent in sedentary activity in both VLBW and control groups (Table I). Daily total physical activity was not significantly different between VLBW and control participants, −18.9 cpm (95% CI; −77.3, 39.5) in the fully adjusted model 3 (Table II). Physical activity also was similar when analyzed separately for weekdays and weekends. Time spent in sedentary activity or

Discussion

We measured physical activity objectively in young, healthy VLBW adults with a wrist-worn accelerometer. Contrary to our hypothesis, we found no significant difference in physical activity levels or sedentary time compared with controls born at term. Our results were not explained by age, sex, season, body mass index, daily smoking, or greatest parental education. Previous studies, by us and others,7, 10, 11, 12 consistently have shown that people born preterm reported substantially lower

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Cited by (0)

Supported by the Academy of Finland, the Finnish Foundation for Pediatric Research, the Finnish Special Governmental Subsidy for Health Sciences, the Jalmari and Rauha Ahokas Foundation, the Juho Vainio Foundation, the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the Päivikki and Sakari Sohlberg Foundation, the University of Helsinki, the Perklén Foundation, the Research Foundation for the Orion Corporation, the Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation, the Sigrid Jusélius Foundation, the Waldemar von Frenckell Foundation, the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation, the Finnish Medical Foundation, the Otto A. Malm Donation Fund, the Emil Aaltonen Foundation, Medical Society of Finland (Finska Läkaresällskapet), and Victoriastiftelsen. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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