A health behaviour pandemic: The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the physical activity, sleep, and sedentary behaviour of already-struggling Canadians.

OBJECTIVES

The Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines (24HMG) provide evidence-based recommendations for health behaviours, including light physical activity, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), sedentary behaviour (SB), sleep, and muscle strengthening activities. These behaviours likely changed as a result of public health measures implemented throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. We aimed to understand how Canadians' health behaviours changed during the pandemic.

METHODS

We conducted a nationwide survey asking Canadians aged 18-64 to report their health behaviours according to the 24HMG at three timepoints: 1) immediately prior to the pandemic, 2) the most restricted timepoint of the pandemic, and 3) more recently, in March 2022.

RESULTS

We received 494 eligible responses from across Canada. Prior to the pandemic, only 7.7% of respondents were able to meet all 24HMG, which reduced to 3.8% during the most restricted phase of the pandemic (p < 0.01). During this timepoint, self-reported MVPA decreased by -21.9 55.6 weekly minutes, muscle strengthening decreased by -0.34 0.94 weekly sessions, and SB increased by 0.88 2.04 daily hours (p < 0.00001 for all), with nonsignificant increases in nightly sleep. At the more recent March 2022 timepoint, mild recoveries were observed in all health behaviours, however remained significantly lower than baseline levels, with the exception of sleep, which decreased significantly (-0.18 1.42 nightly hours, p = 0.005).

CONCLUSIONS

Unfavourable health behaviour changes among Canadians were observed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, which increases the risk for acute and long-term health conditions. Improved education, infrastructure, and support from public and private sectors can reverse the negative risk factors that arise from these health behaviour changes, and can improve the culture of proactive health behaviours in Canada.