title: An evidence-update on the prospective relationship between childhood sedentary behaviour and biomedical health indicators: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
abstract: Evidence for adverse health effects of excessive sedentary behaviour in children is predominantly based on cross-sectional studies, measuring TV viewing as proxy for sedentary behaviour. This systematic review and meta-analysis summarizes the evidence on the prospective relationship between childhood sedentary behaviour and biomedical health indicators, overall and stratified by type of sedentary behaviour (TV viewing, computer use/games, screen time and objective sedentary time). PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO and Cochrane were systematically searched till January 2015. Methodological quality of all included studies was scored, and a best evidence synthesis was applied. We included 109 studies of which 19 were of high quality. We found moderate-to-strong evidence for a relationship of overall sedentary time with some anthropometrics (overweight/obesity, weight-for-height), one cardiometabolic biomarker (HDL-cholesterol) and some fitness indicators (fitness, being unfit). For other health indicators, we found no convincing evidence because of inconsistent or non-significant findings. The evidence varied by type of sedentary behaviour. The meta-analysis indicated that each additional baseline hour of TV viewing (β = 0.01, 95%CI = [-0.002; 0.02]) or computer use (β = 0.00, 95%CI = [-0.004; 0.01]) per day was not significantly related with BMI at follow-up. We conclude that the evidence for a prospective relationship between childhood sedentary behaviour and biomedical health is in general unconvincing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public and Occupational Health, VU University Medical Center, EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: van Ekris
authors.affiliation: Department of Public and Occupational Health, VU University Medical Center, EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: T M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Altenburg
authors.affiliation: Department of Public and Occupational Health, VU University Medical Center, EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: A S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.affiliation: Department of Public and Occupational Health, VU University Medical Center, EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: K I
authors.initials: KI
authors.lastname: Proper
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, VU University Medical Center, EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: M W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Heymans
authors.affiliation: Department of Public and Occupational Health, VU University Medical Center, EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: M J M
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Chinapaw
mesh_terms: D000886:Anthropometry; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood; D001794:Blood Pressure; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000097:blood / Q000453:epidemiology; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior; D000067576:Child Health; D006801:Humans; D050177:Overweight / Q000453:epidemiology*; D063766:Pediatric Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology*; D057185:Sedentary Behavior
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers
keywords: Health; prospective; sedentary behaviour; youth