Associations Between Objectively Measured Physical Activity And Cognition In Adolescents: Evidence From The ALSPAC Cohort

To examine the relationship between objectively measured levels of PA and EF in English adolescents. 5593 participants (47.6% male) from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) had valid accelerometer measurements of PA (at least 10 hours a day on a minimum of three days) at 11 years of age. PA was recorded as average counts per minute (cpm) and as daily number of minutes spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Participants completed three tasks of EF from the Test of Everyday Attention for Children (TEA-Ch) assessing attention, inhibition and working memory. Mean cpm was 604 (SD = 178) and the mean number of minutes per day spent in MVPA was 23 (SD=15). Moderate gender differences in PA were observed for cpm (effect size = 0.66, 95% CI 0.60-0.71) and daily minutes in MVPA (effect size = 0.70, 95% CI 0.65-0.75).