Associations between vigorous exercise and moderate activity patterns with disease prevalence in Central Queensland

Introduction: In order to gain health benefits, Australian adults are encouraged to accumulate 30 min of physical activity, at moderate or greater intensity, on most days of the week. Sufficient physical activity has been interpreted in various ways. For example, the ACSM has endorsed the recommendation that all healthy adults should undertake a minimum of 30 min of moderate intensity exercise on at least 5 days of the week or 20 min of vigorous activity on at least 3 days of the week. This study investigated associations between self-reported physical activity patterns and selected diseases in randomly selected adults living in Central Queensland, Australia. Methods: 1289 participants (male = 635, female 654) provided responses to a direct-dial, land-based telephone survey that was conducted using a computer-assisted telephone-interview survey in October–November 2010. Participants were asked to answer questions including age, gender, stature, mass, and health status along with the Active Australia Physical Activity questions. The strength of association between variables was determined using odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals. Results: 42% of respondents reported that they undertook sufficient physical activity (defined as the completion of 150 min or more of moderate and vigorous activity in the past week, where the time of vigorous activity was doubled) and 23% reported greater than 60 min of vigorous activity. Sufficient physical activity was associated with decreased prevalence of overweight and obesity (OR: 0.59, 0.46–0.75), diabetes (OR: 0.65, 0.44–0.96), arthritis (OR: 0.73, 0.56–0.96), bone disease (OR: 0.62, 0.39–0.97), and depression and anxiety (OR: 0.48, 0.34–0.68). Undertaking 60 min or more vigorous activity was associated with decreased prevalence of overweight and obesity (OR: 0.61, 0.46–0.80), diabetes (OR: 0.48, 0.28–0.83), heart disease (OR: 0.43, 0.25–0.74), abnormal blood pressure (OR: 0.61, 0.45–0.82), elevated cholesterol (OR: 0.58, 0.41–0.82), arthritis (OR: 0.52, 0.37–0.74), bone disease (OR: 0.49, 0.26–0.91), back pain (OR: 0.74, 0.56–0.98), and depression and anxiety (OR: 0.27, 0.16–0.45). Conclusions: Sufficient physical activity was associated with reduced risk of obesity, depression and anxiety, and selected diseases. Nevertheless, more frequent and stronger associations were evident with health outcomes when respondents accumulated 60 min or more of vigorous exercise. Therefore, vigorous activity patterns might provide additional information when assessing the risk of various hypokinetic diseases and researchers using the Active Australia Physical Activity questions should consider refining the definition of sufficient physical activity to include the accumulation of 60 min of vigorous exercise.