Barreiras a prática de atividades físicas: prevalência e fatores associados.

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the prevalence and correlates of barriers to physical activity in a Brazilian city. Methods: A representative sample of individuals aged 20 years was selected following a multiple-stage strategy. Physical activity was evaluated using the leisure-time section of the long International Physical Activity Questionnaire. Eight barriers were investigated: feel too old to exercise, have an injury or disease, dislike exercising, being too tired to exercise, lack of money, fear of injuries, lack of company, and lack of time. These barriers were chosen after a review of the most-frequently reported barriers to physical activity in the literature, and analysis of the most-frequently reported barriers in two pilot studies using open questions.

Results: Eighty-five percent of the 3100 individuals interviewed reported at least one barrier. The barrier with the highest prevalence was lack of money (40.3%), followed by feel too tired to exercise (38.1%), lack of company (32.2%), and lack of time (31.5%). Women, the elderly, and those with worse socioeconomic indicators were more likely to perceive most barriers. A strong dose-response relationship between the number of barriers and physical inactivity was observed. After adjustment for potential confounders, dislike exercising, feel too tired to exercise, lack of money, lack of company, and lack of time were significant predictors of physical inactivity.

Conclusion: Although our data arise from a single Brazilian city, they suggest that correlates of physical inactivity between developed and developing countries are different, and therefore, interventions to promote physical activity should use site-specific data. The high rates of the perceived barriers, and the strong association found between them and leisure-time physical activity highlight the need of interventions to help people overcome these barriers.