Community Specific Daily Activity in Northern Plains American Indian Youth

Overweight and obesity affect almost half of all reservation based Native American youth. One causative factor may be low levels of physical activity. The purpose of this study was to compare Native American physical activity in adolescents living on reservations to their urban dwelling counterparts. We examined physical activity using an automated Audience Response System that deployed the validated International Physical Activity Questionnaire (I-PAQ) in 689 children; 377 reservation-based Native American adolescents, 213 (urban) Native American adolescents and in 99 non-Native urban adolescents. Results indicated that overall reservation-based Native American adolescents were NOT less active than their urban counterparts. However, reservation-based Native American adolescents were more active than their urban counterparts for medium intensity outdoor household activity (mean activity minutes per week 243 (SD 297) versus 186 (255), p = 0.02), for heavy intensity outdoor household activity (mean 209 (SD 264) versus 160 (223), p < 0.03), and for medium intensity indoor household activity (mean 210 (SD 246) versus 169 (211), p= 0.05). Compared to the Native urban adolescents, the non-Native urban adolescents were more active by half an hour/day for medium intensity activity (mean minutes per week 1208 (SD1209) versus 949 (909) min/ wk, p = 0.05) for any physical activity and were leaner by 2 Body Mass Index (BMI) units (mean BMI 20.8 (SD 4.4) versus 22.4 (SD 5.3) kg/m2, p=0.008). Low levels of physical activity occur similarly in reservation-based Native American and urban Native American 10-14 year old children. Physical activity levels were low in both reservation-based and urban Native American adolescents; improving physical activity in Native American adolescents is an opportunity for community participatory research.