Do women with diagnosed osteopenia achieve the health physical activity guidelines? Objective and subjective assessment.

INTRODUCCIÓN

The benefits of physical activity (PA) are well documented (Lee et al., 1995; Paffenbarger et al., 1993; Paffenbarger et al., 1994; Blair et al., 1995). Therefore, PA promotion has become one of the principal health promotion strategies (CDC, 2001a). The current PA guidelines for health indicate that adults should engage in moderate-tovigorous PA (MVPA) for a minimum of 30 minutes per day on most, preferably all, the days of the week (Pate et al., 1995; CDC, 2001a). Unfortunately, a large proportion of adults fail to achieve this guideline (Reeves & Rafferty, 2005; CDC, 2001b). There are also many studies which have indicated the relationship between insufficient PA and osteopenia (K Brooke-Wavell, Jones, Hardman, Tsuritan, & Yamada, 2001; Kemmler, Weineck, Kalender, & Engelke, 2004; Zanker & Cooke, 2004). The purpose of this study was to determine if women with diagnosed osteopenia achieved the physical activity guidelines for health using two validated methods: MTI Actigraph accelerometer worn for four consecutive days, and the Spanish version of the IPAQ questionnaire.

METHODODLOGY

55 women aged (57,6±7,1) from Toledo, Spain, diagnosed with osteopenia (TScore <-1,1) successfully filled in the IPAQ questionnaire and wore an MTI Actigraph accelerometer for four consecutive days (Manufacturing Technology Inc., model 7164).

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

A descriptive analysis presented the achievement of the PA guidelines with the two different methods. Concurrent validity between MTI Actigraph and the IPAQ questionnaire was assessed using Pearson product-moment correlation.

RESULTS

Low and no significant correlations were obtained between acceleromentry and questionnaire data (r= .250; p=.106). Only 13 women achieved the PA guidelines objectively using accelerometry (see table 1) whereas 23 women achieved the same guideline through the questionnaire (see table 2).

Table 1. Days achieving a minimum of 30 minutes MVPA through accelerometry technology (Objectively)

Table 2. Daily minutes of MVPA reported through questionnaire (Subjectively)

CONCLUSION

The subjects of this study reported a greater achievement of the physical activity guidelines for health subjectively, using the Spanish version of IPAQ questionnaire, than objectively, by MTI Actigraph. Not only is there poor achievement of PA guidelines but there is also poor awareness of actual PA levels.