Trends and Prevalence of Reported Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour of Children in Asian Countries: A Systematic Review

Trends and Prevalence of Reported Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour of Children in Asian Countries: A Systematic Review

Aim: The aim of this review was to identify and synthesise the evidence on the prevalence of reported physical activity and sedentary behaviours among children in Asian countries. Methods: Electronic database and manual searches were conducted in July 2022. For inclusion, studies were required to: (i) be a cross-sectional or longitudinal studies conducted within an Asian country; (ii) include children aged 5-12 years (or mean age within this range); (iii) include a quantitative measure of self/parent reported physical activity and/or sedentary behaviour; (iv) report on the prevalence of meeting the physical activity guidelines and/ or prevalence of at least one domain of sedentary behaviour; (v) be published after 2012. Results: Eighteen studies (k=35 samples) included prevalence data on meeting physical activity guidelines and 30 studies (k= 62 samples) included prevalence data on at least one sedentary behaviour outcome. Most the samples in the present review came from China, and the majority were cross-sectional. Sixty percent of samples had low levels of physical activity, and the data from two longitudinal studies suggested that the prevalence of those meeting the guidelines decreases over time. Furthermore, the evidence suggested that boys were more active than girls. More than half of the children included in this review were reported to have exceeded 2 hours/day of screen-time, and girls had higher screen-time than boys in more than half of the samples. Conclusions: The evidence suggests that most children have low levels of physical activity, and that there are inequalities by gender. The evidence for the prevalence of sedentary behaviour presents a more complex picture because of the large number of behaviours examined across studies. While more than half of the children exceeded 2h/day of screentime, there was considerable variability across studies highlighting the complexity of understanding such behaviours across such a diverse and expansive population.