Sport disciplines, types of sports, and waist circumference in young adulthood – a population-based twin study

Abstract

Purpose: The benefits of physical activity (PA) in preventing abdominal obesity are well recognized, but the role of different sport disciplines remains open. We aimed, therefore, to investigate how participation in different sport disciplines, and the number and types of sports engaged in are associated with waist circumference (WC) in young adulthood. Methods: This population-based cohort study comprised 4027 Finnish twin individuals (1874 men), with a mean age of 34 y (32–37), who answered a survey, including self-measured WC. We extracted the number and identified the types (aerobic, power, and mixed) of the different sport disciplines respondents reported participating in. Results: The number of sport disciplines participated in was inversely associated with WC, the linear decrease averaging 1.38 cm (95% CI 1.10–1.65) per each additional sport discipline. The result persisted after adjustment for the main covariates, such as volume of PA and diet quality. Among dizygotic twin pairs discordant for sports participation (0–2 vs. 5 or more disciplines), the mean within-pair difference in WC was 4.8 cm (95% CI 0.4–9.1) for men and 11.2 cm (95% CI 4.4–18.0) for women; among discordant monozygotic pairs, no differences were observed. In men, all three types of sports were individually associated with smaller WC, while in women, only mixed and power sports showed this association. Conclusions: Participation in several sport disciplines and sport types was associated with smaller WC among young adults in their mid-30s. Shared genetic background may explain some of the associations.

Keywords:

• Physical activity
• sport disciplines
• abdominal obesity
• waist circumference
• twin study

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at 10.1080/17461391.2017.1356874.

Additional information

Funding

Data collection in FinnTwin16 has been made possible by the Academy of Finland [grants 100499, 205585, 118555, 141054 to JK], the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism [grants AA-12502, AA-00145, AA-09203 to Richard J. Rose], and the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture (UK). Analyses and manuscript preparation have been supported by the Juho Vainio Foundation (MR), the Finnish Cultural Foundation (MR), the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture (UK), META-PREDICT (within the European Union Seventh Framework Programme, HEALTH-F2-2012-277936 to UK), and the Academy of Finland [grants 265240, 263278 to JK], [grant 286536 to TT].