How does relative time in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity correspond to the 2020 guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour?

Background: More and more researchers have started to analyse device-measured physical activity data using compositional data analysis (CoDA), which has led to that the effect of relative time in different behaviours can be explored. However, there are challenges related to the interpretation of the results based on CoDA. This is partly related to that CoDA provides estimates based on the relative time that is difficult to interpret relative to the 2020 guidelines of physical activity and sedentary behaviour. Since many data cohorts do not have data on sleep, the proportion of time in physical activity may vary depending on accelerometer wear time. Therefore, there is a need to explore cut-points for relative time to distinguish between individuals that do and do not reach 150–300 min of moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA) per week. The aim was to establish a ratio of MVPA to awaken time that corresponds to meeting the 2020 guidelines of physical activity and sedentary behaviour in adults. Method: To estimate the cut-off points of relative time in MVPA, the publicly available data from NHANES 2003–2004 was used and cut-off points were explored in different subsets of the total population. Values for sensitivity, specificity and cut-off values were explored; i) in total sample, ii) by tertiles of wear time, iii) in individuals with ± 5 min from 150 to 300 min of MVPA, iiii) in individuals with ± 5 min from 150 to 300 min of MVPA in the middle tertile of wear time. Results: Overall, the analyses show high values for sensitivity (88–100%) and specificity (66–99%) for different cut-off values associated with 150–300 min of MVPA. Spending 2.4–4.7% of the time awake in MVPA was found to correspond to the 2020 guidelines of physical activity and sedentary behaviour. Conclusion: Based on publicly available data from NHANES 2003–2004, spending 2.4–4.7% of time awake in MVPA corresponds to meeting the 2020 guidelines of physical activity and sedentary behaviour. © The Author(s) 2023.