Profile of physical activity behaviors among Swedish women aged 56-75 years

The aim of this study was to assess profiles of physical activity (PA) behavior using accelerometers among middle-aged and elderly women in free-living conditions. A subset of 133 women aged 56-75 years from the population-based Swedish Mammography Cohort with valid accelerometer data was included in the analysis. The proportion of women who met the PA recommendation of accumulating 30 min of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), in either one continuous bout or several shorter bouts lasting 8-10 min, on five or more days/week was 31%. The precision of mean daily estimates of MVPA and of inactivity based on 7 days monitoring was 0.80 and 0.86, respectively. On average, participants spent 103 min/day on MVPA, but only about a third of that time was accumulated in the recommended pattern of bouts lasting at least 8-10 min. Obese women had, on average, one bout of MVPA less than normal-weight women (mean 3.6 bouts/day). The mean MVPA decreased 10 min/day with every 5-year increase in age. A low proportion of women accumulated MVPA in the pattern recommended for health benefits. The proportion would increase considerably if women maintained their current amount of MVPA but increased the duration of each bout of MVPA.