Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Inactividad física y sedentarismo. La otra cara de los efectos secundarios de la Pandemia de COVID-19

2020; Q16635223; Volume: 148; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.4067/s0034-98872020000600885

0717-6163

Carlos Celis‐Morales, Carlos Salas-Bravo, Aquiles Yáñez, Marcelo Castillo-Retamal,

COVID-19 and Mental Health

If we consider the 30 million users of Fitbit movement monitors globally and compare their physical activity levels for March 2020 (when COVID-19 was declared a pandemic) with their physical activity levels for the same month, but In 2019, a decrease of between 7% to 38% was observed in the number of steps walked daily. If we focus on data from China, the first country hit by COVID-19 it is clearly observed that physical activity decreased from 10,000 average steps per day to ~6,000 daily steps throughout the country since the quarantine was declared. Although the decrease in levels of physical activity and increase in sitting behavior (time spent sitting) is an inevitable reaction of social isolation and the current confinement conditions, its consequences in the short and medium term could be more severe than expected. This is corroborated by a study carried out in men who underwent an intervention where they reduced the number of daily steps from 10,501 to 1,344 for 2 weeks 5. A similar trend was observed in another study where physically inactive men reduced their number of steps from 6,203 to 1,394 steps per day for 3 weeks. These studies provide evidence that short periods of induced physical inactivity and increased sitting behavior, which to some extent induce the current conditions of confinement or social isolation during this COVID-19 pandemic, could have important metabolic implications on the health of the population.