The study by Dr. Jean-Philippe Chaput and other researchers, including HALOites Travis Saunders and Dr. Mark Tremblay, that has been receiving media attention this week (see here and here) will soon be published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism. The title of the study is “Combined associations between moderate to vigorous physical activity and sedentary behaviour with cardiometabolic risk factors in children” and can be read for free in full here. Citations details are below along with the abstract, which summarizes the study.

Jean-Philippe Chaput, Travis John Saunders, Marie-Ève Mathieu, Mélanie Henderson, Mark Stephen Tremblay, Jennifer O’Loughlin, Angelo Tremblay (2013). Combined associations between moderate to vigorous physical activity and sedentary behaviour with cardiometabolic risk factors in children. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, 10.1139/apnm-2012-0382.

ABSTRACT: The objective of this study was to examine the combined associations between time spent in moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity (MVPA) and time spent sedentary in relation to cardiometabolic risk factors in a cohort of Canadian children. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 536 white children aged 8–10 years with at least 1 obese biological parent. Time spent in MVPA and sedentary behaviour over 7 days was measured using accelerometry and participants were stratified by tertiles. Daily screen time over 7 days was also self-reported by the child. Outcomes included waist circumference, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, fasting triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and glucose concentrations. Analyses of covariance comparing tertiles of sedentary time/MVPA showed that higher levels of MVPA were associated with lower waist circumference, fasting triglycerides and diastolic blood pressure, and higher high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, irrespective of sedentary time. In linear regression, MVPA was inversely associated with waist circumference and diastolic blood pressure and positively associated with HDL cholesterol, independent of covariates including sedentary time. In contrast, sedentary time was positively associated with diastolic blood pressure but after adjustment for MVPA the association was no longer statistically significant. Self-reported screen time was positively associated with waist circumference and negatively associated with HDL cholesterol independent of covariates including MVPA. Overall, a high level of MVPA was associated with reduced cardiometabolic risk in this sample of children, regardless of their amount of sedentary behaviour. The type of sedentary behaviour (i.e., screen time) might be more important than overall sedentary time in relation to cardiometabolic risk.