| dc.description | The 24-Hour Movement Guidelines provide specific recommendations on movement behaviors for children and adolescents. The objective of this study was to verify the adequacy of children and adolescents to the guidelines for moderate to vigorous physical activity, recreational screen time, and sleep duration, and the overall adequacy to the guidelines, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. A cross-sectional study was conducted with parents or guardians of children or adolescents from different regions of Brazil using a digital interview form including sociodemographic characteristics of families, moderate to vigorous physical activity, recreational screen time, and sleep duration before and during the pandemic. Statistically significant variation was observed in both groups in relation to moderate to vigorous physical activity and recreational screen time between the two periods evaluated. Overall adequacy to the guidelines before the pandemic was 19.28% for children from Group 1 (0-5 years old) and 39.50% for those from Group 2 (6 to 17 years old). During the pandemic, it corresponded to 3.58% in Group 1 and 4.94% in Group 2 (p-value between periods ≤0.001). This study showed the significant impact of pandemic restrictions on reducing overall compliance and physical activity, and increasing screen time among Brazilian children and adolescents. Conclusions: The overall adequacy to the recommendations of the 24-Hour Movement Guidelines regarding MVPA, recreational screen time, and sleep duration was not satisfactory before the COVID-19 pandemic, with worse results during the pandemic. Social isolation measures contributed to the reduction of physical activity and to the increase of screen time among Brazilian children and adolescents. Therefore, we recommend education regarding the importance of physical activity, reducing the use of screens, and adequate sleep time according to the age group. The monitoring of actions aimed at children, adolescents, parents, schools, and health professionals should be encouraged to achieve healthier lifestyles and the improvement of habits related to health and school performance beyond the pandemic scenario. | |
