Drivers of adolescent adiposity: Evidence from the Australian LOOK study

To contribute to our understanding of the drivers of body composition during adolescence we sought to employ valid and reliable measures to investigate cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships between percentage body fat (%BF) and physical activity (PA), moderate and vigorous PA (MVPA), sedentary time (ST), total energy, sugar and fat intake. Longitudinal cohort study. We measured 556 (289 male) participants at age 12.4 (SD 0.4) years, and 269 (123 males) at 16.3 (SD 0.4) years, for %BF (dual energy X-ray absorptiometry); habitual PA, MVPA, ST (accelerometry); and dietary intake (‘multi-pass’ weekday and weekend 24-h recall). Accounting for likely under-reporting of energy intake (Goldberg cut-off), general linear mixed modelling was used to generate relationships with %BF. Cross-sectional analyses indicated that 10min more MVPA per day was associated with 0.6 lower %BF (95%CI 0.4–0.9, p