Parous women perform less moderate to vigorous physical activity than their nulliparous peers: a population-based study in Denmark

Bueno, S. V., Nielsen, R. O., Kallestrup, P., Ryom, K., Morgan, K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8685-1177, Elsborg, P., Petersen, C. B. and Jacobsen, J. S. 2024. Parous women perform less moderate to vigorous physical activity than their nulliparous peers: a population-based study in Denmark. Public Health 231 , pp. 47-54. 10.1016/j.puhe.2024.03.010

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Abstract

Objectives The World Health Organization (WHO) highlights parous women as a key population for monitoring trends of physical activity (PA). We aimed to estimate the proportion of Danish women non-adhering to WHO PA guidelines in parous women compared with nulliparous women and to describe leisure-time PA intensity in each of these groups. Study design Cross-sectional study. Methods This population-based study builds on a sample of 27,668 women aged 16–40 years from the Danish National Health Survey 2021. These data were linked with childbirth data from the Danish National Birth Registry. The primary outcome was self-reported weekly hours of moderate to vigorous leisure-time PA (MVPA) dichotomized into: (i) adhering to WHO guidelines for MVPA or (ii) not adhering to WHO guidelines for MVPA. Binomial regression analysis was used to calculate prevalence proportions (PP) and prevalence proportion ratios (PPR). Results Of the 27,668 women, a total of 20,022 were included; 9338 (46.6%) parous women and 10,684 (53.4%) nulliparous women. The PP of women non-adhering to WHO PA guidelines was 63.8% (95% CI 62.9–64.8) for parous and 51.3% (95% CI 50.4–52.3) for nulliparous women, corresponding to a PPR of 1.24 (95% CI 1.21; 1.27). Conclusions The proportion of parous women who did not adhere to WHO PA guidelines for MVPA was 24% higher than that of nulliparous women. This highlights parous women as a subgroup of the adult population at increased risk of non-adherence to WHO PA guidelines. These findings call for future research to inform new strategies aiming to promote PA in parous women.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education) Development and Evaluation of Complex Interventions for Public Health Improvement (DECIPHer)
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, Start Date: 2024-03-11
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	0033-3506
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	18 April 2024
Date of Acceptance:	8 March 2024
Last Modified:	18 Apr 2024 09:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/168138

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