Associations between adherence to 24-Hour Movement Guidelines with continuous metabolic syndrome score among Chinese children and adolescents

Objectives

The objective of this study was to evaluate the associations between adherence to 24-Hour Movement Guidelines (24-HMG) with continuous metabolic syndrome score (cMetS) among Chinese children.

Study design

Cross-sectional study.

Methods

We conducted a cross-sectional study among 4604 children aged 6–17 years from Shenzhen, China. The 24-HMG was constructed using the self-report information on moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), screen time (ST), and sleep duration. The cMetS was calculated based on waist circumference, homoeostatic model assessment for insulin resistance, mean arterial blood pressure, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglyceride. Multivariate linear regression models were used to assess the associations between adherence to recommendations of 24-HMG and cMetS.

Results

Among the participants, 563 (12.23%) students adhered to 3 recommendations of the 24-HMG. We found that adhering to more recommendations was negatively associated with cMetS (P for trend: <0.001). For specific combinations, meeting the ST + MVPA recommendations was negatively associated with cMetS (coefficients [β]: −0.686; 95% confidence interval [CI]: −1.148, −0.223). Individuals who adhered to all recommendations had a lower cMetS (β: −0.693; 95% CI: −1.147, −0.238) than those who met none of the recommendations.

Conclusions

Our study showed that adherence to more recommendations of the 24-HMG was associated with lower levels of cMetS in Chinese children and adolescents.