Low movement, deep-learned sitting patterns, and sedentary behavior in the International Study of Childhood Obesity, Lifestyle and the Environment (ISCOLE)

Background/Objectives Sedentary behavior (SB) has both movement and postural components, but most SB research has only assessed low movement, especially in children. The purpose of this study was to compare estimates and health associations of SB when derived from a standard accelerometer cut-point, a novel sitting detection technique (CNN Hip Accelerometer Posture for Children; CHAP-Child), and both combined. Methods Data were from the International Study of Childhood Obesity, Lifestyle, and the Environment (ISCOLE). Participants were 6103 children (mean ± SD age 10.4 ± 0.56 years) from 12 countries who wore an ActiGraph GT3X+ accelerometer on the right hip for approximately one week. We calculated SB time, mean SB bout duration, and SB breaks using a cut-point (SB movement ), CHAP-Child (SB posture ), and both methods combined (SB combined ). Mixed effects regression was used to test associations of SB variables with pediatric obesity variables (waist circumference, body fat percentage, and body mass index z-score). Results After adjusting for MVPA, SB posture showed several significant obesity associations favoring lower mean SB bout duration ( b = 0.251–0.449; all p < 0.001) and higher SB breaks ( b = −0.005–−0.052; all p < 0.001). Lower total SB was unexpectedly related to greater obesity ( b = −0.077–−0.649; p from <0.001–0.02). For mean SB bout duration and SB breaks, more associations were observed for SB posture ( n = 5) than for SB movement ( n = 3) or SB combined ( n = 1), and tended to have larger magnitude as well. Conclusions Using traditional measures of low movement as a surrogate for SB may lead to underestimated or undetected adverse associations between SB and obesity. CHAP-Child allows assessment of sitting posture using hip-worn accelerometers. Ongoing work is needed to understand how low movement and posture are related to one another, as well as their potential health implications.