Parous women perform less moderate to vigorous physical activity than their nulliparous peers: a population-based study in Denmark

The World Health Organization (WHO) highlights parous women as a key population for monitoring trends of physical activity (PA). We aimed to estimate the proportion of Danish women non-adhering to WHO PA guidelines in parous women compared with nulliparous women and to describe leisure-time PA inten...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Public health (London) 2024-06, Vol.231, p.47-54
Main Authors: Bueno, S.V., Nielsen, R.O., Kallestrup, P., Ryom, K., Morgan, K., Elsborg, P., Petersen, C.B., Jacobsen, J.S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Cross-Sectional Studies
Denmark
Exercise
Female
Health Surveys
Humans
Leisure Activities
Nulliparous women
Parity
Parous women
Physical activity
Pregnancy
Prevalence
Sedentary behavior
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The World Health Organization (WHO) highlights parous women as a key population for monitoring trends of physical activity (PA). We aimed to estimate the proportion of Danish women non-adhering to WHO PA guidelines in parous women compared with nulliparous women and to describe leisure-time PA intensity in each of these groups. Cross-sectional study. This population-based study builds on a sample of 27,668 women aged 16–40 years from the Danish National Health Survey 2021. These data were linked with childbirth data from the Danish National Birth Registry. The primary outcome was self-reported weekly hours of moderate to vigorous leisure-time PA (MVPA) dichotomized into: (i) adhering to WHO guidelines for MVPA or (ii) not adhering to WHO guidelines for MVPA. Binomial regression analysis was used to calculate prevalence proportions (PP) and prevalence proportion ratios (PPR). Of the 27,668 women, a total of 20,022 were included; 9338 (46.6%) parous women and 10,684 (53.4%) nulliparous women. The PP of women non-adhering to WHO PA guidelines was 63.8% (95% CI 62.9–64.8) for parous and 51.3% (95% CI 50.4–52.3) for nulliparous women, corresponding to a PPR of 1.24 (95% CI 1.21; 1.27). The proportion of parous women who did not adhere to WHO PA guidelines for MVPA was 24% higher than that of nulliparous women. This highlights parous women as a subgroup of the adult population at increased risk of non-adherence to WHO PA guidelines. These findings call for future research to inform new strategies aiming to promote PA in parous women.
ISSN:0033-3506
1476-5616
DOI:10.1016/j.puhe.2024.03.010