A Snapshot on the Daily Sedentary Behavior of Community Dwelling Older African American Women

Abstract

Long periods of sedentary behavior (SB) is detrimental for health. This study investigated SB in older African American women (OAAW) and further compared it between participants of different physical activity status. Twenty OAAW had their sedentary time measured by accelerometers for seven consecutive days. Actigraph 6 processed accelerometer data and SPSS was used for statistical analysis with significance set at p < .05. Our sample spent approximately 9 hours in SB with an average of 27 breaks of sedentary time per day. The inactive group had higher amounts of time ( p < .01) on the average length of sedentary bout and the average number of sedentary bouts longer than 30 minutes compared with the active group. OAAW spend large amounts of their awaking hours in sedentary activities. The findings suggest that the inactive women may be at increased health risk based on the low levels of physical activity and the prolonged sedentary bouts.