Associations among Active Transportation, Physical Activity, and Weight Status in Young Adults

Penny Gordon‐Larsen · Melissa N. Laska · Kristen Beam

172 citations0/0 files storedObesity Research

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Urban Transport and Accessibility Physical Activity and Health Obesity, Physical Activity, Diet

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To describe prevalence of active, public, and car transit by overweight status and amount of leisure-time physical activity in a nationally representative cohort of ethnically diverse young adults. RESEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Questionnaire data on patterns of transportation were collected from U.S. adolescents enrolled in Wave III (2001) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 10,771). Measured height and weight data were used to calculate BMI and classify adults by overweight status (BMI > or = 25). Self-reported physical activity data were used to classify adults into those who achieved > or = 5 bouts of weekly moderate-vigorous physical activity and those who did not. Results were stratified by overweight and physical activity status. RESULTS: The vast majority of young adults used car transit (work, 90.4%; school, 74.7%). A small proportion of young adults used active means of transportation to work (8.1%) and school (26.7%), and fewer used public transportation to work or school (<10%). The proportion of individuals using active transportation was higher among the nonoverweight traveling to work (9.2%) and school (29.7%) and among the more active traveling to work (15.2%) and school (37.0%) relative to the overweight and less active young adults. DISCUSSION: The vast majority of young adults of all racial/ethnic backgrounds, particularly blacks and Hispanics, did not use active transportation to school and/or work. Active transportation was more common among nonoverweight and more active young adults, of high socioeconomic status, particularly full-time students. Population-level efforts (and environmental supports) to increase non-leisure physical activity, particularly active transportation, are sorely needed as a means of supporting and promoting overall physical activity.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 172 citations exist upstream.

References

2003Environmental correlates of walking and cycling: Findings from the transportation, urban design, and planning literatures 2004Obesity relationships with community design, physical activity, and time spent in cars 2004Understanding environmental influences on walking 1998Ethnic and Socioeconomic Differences in Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors 2003Commuting to school 2002The Road to Obesity or the Path to Prevention: Motorized Transportation and Obesity in China 2002Exploring the effect of the environment on physical activity 2004Associations of Location and Perceived Environmental Attributes with Walking in Neighborhoods

Cited by

2018Built environment associates of active school travel in New Zealand children and youth: A systematic meta-analysis using individual participant data 2014What’s your type: a multidimensional cyclist typology 2010Active commuting to school in children and adolescents: An opportunity to increase physical activity and fitness 2013Health impact assessment of increasing public transport and cycling use in Barcelona: A morbidity and burden of disease approach

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.