Approved research

Exploring the relationships of movement behaviours with adverse health outcomes.

Lay summary

The environments we currently live in tend to encourage individuals to adopt unhealthy movement behaviours, such as physical inactivity, sedentary time, lower participation in fitness-increasing activities, etc. As these unhealthy movement behaviours can lead to increased risk of developing various adverse health outcomes, such as mortality, cardiovascular disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes and obesity, it is important to reverse this trend and promote healthy movement behaviours, instead. As such, several global recommendations and public health policies have emphasised the positive role of promoting healthy movement behaviours in the context of disease prevention and control. However, existing evidence on the movement behaviour-disease relationships has been established using inaccurate assessments of movement behaviours, inappropriate adjustment for other disease risk factors, measurement of movement behaviours only at a single point in time, a small sample of participants, and no participants' genetic information. Using UK Biobank, which overcomes all these limitations, we aim to investigate the impacts of a wide variety of lifestyle movement behaviours such as physical activity, fitness and sedentary behaviours, on various adverse health outcomes, such as mortality, cardiovascular disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes and obesity. Examples of specific research questions to be answered in the proposed research include (but are not limited to): Are changes in movement behaviours associated with health outcomes?; can other disease risk factors (e.g., adiposity) modify the movement behaviour-disease associations?; and can favourable levels of movement behaviours reduce the increased genetic risk of developing diseases? The proposed research will be carried out on a 3-year rolling basis. The proposed research using a series of relevant methodologies will provide robust evidence on the impacts of healthy movement behaviours on various detrimental health outcomes. Findings from the proposed research will not only help individuals adopt healthier lifestyles, but also inform clinical trials and public health policies aimed at reducing disease risk through promotion of healthy movement behaviours.