Today's mothers are spending an average of 12.5 hours less per week on physical activity (PA) than mothers in the 1960s—a difference that researchers are describing as a "significant reallocation" of time to sedentary activities that could contribute to a potential public health crisis.
The findings, published in the December Mayo Clinic Proceedings, examined data contained in the American Heritage Time and Use Study, an activity log program that has captured more than 50,000 diary days and 90 behavioral categories from mothers beginning in 1965.
Researchers divided the mothers into 2 groups—those with children between the ages of 5 and 18 (mothers with older children or MOC), and those with children younger than 5 (mothers with younger children, MYC)—and reviewed activity logs over a 45-year period, 1965–2010.What they found, according to the authors, was alarming:
Researchers attributed most of the difference to a significant rise in "screen-based media use" and wrote that "with each passing generation, mothers have become increasingly physically inactive, sedentary, and obese, thereby potentially predisposing children to an increased risk of inactivity, adiposity, and chronic [non-communicable diseases]."
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