Abstract
Objectives
UK guidelines for youth recommend daily physical activity and five portions of fruit and vegetables per day. This study examined the prevalence and clustering of meeting recommendations among 10- to 15-year old.
Methods
Data for 3,914 youth, from the first wave of Understanding Society: the UK Household Longitudinal Study, were analysed. Clustering was assessed using the observed/expected ratio method.
Results
A minority of youth met both recommendations, and these behaviours were clustered. The odds of meeting both recommendations were lower for older youth and for Pakistani and Bangladeshi youth; boys in lower income households were less likely to meet both recommendations.
Conclusions
Most youth met neither recommendation and the behaviours clustered with variations by ethnicity and socioeconomic conditions.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the funding from the Public Health Research Consortium, (PHRC). The Public Health Research Consortium is funded by the Department of Health (DH) Policy Research Programme. The PHRC brings together researchers from 11 UK institutions and aims to strengthen the evidence base for public health, with a strong emphasis in tackling inequalities in health. Information about the wider programme of the PHRC is available from http://phrc.lshtm.ac.uk/. The views expressed in the paper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the DH.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.
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McAloney, K., Graham, H., Law, C. et al. Fruit and vegetable consumption and sports participation among UK Youth. Int J Public Health 59, 117–121 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-013-0523-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-013-0523-9