Association of leisure time physical activity and sports competition activities with high blood pressure levels: study carried out in a sample of Portuguese children and adolescents.

BACKGROUND: A better understanding of the different domains and characteristics of children's and adolescent's physical activity (PA) could be a strategy to clarify the association of this behaviour with the early development of cardiovascular risk factors.
OBJECTIVES: To examine the relationship between leisure time physical activity (LTPA) and sports competition activities (SCA) with high blood pressure (HBP) levels in a sample of children and adolescents from Porto, Portugal. STUDY
DESIGN: This is a cross-sectional study, which comprised 503 boys and 572 girls, aged 8-17 years old. LTPA and SCA were assed by self-reported. Students were assigned as active and non-active in SCA or LTPA according to their self-reported participation. Participants were classified as HBP when they are above of the last quartile for systolic and/or diastolic BP adjusted for gender and age.
RESULTS: Do not be engaged in LTPA (OR: 1.47; 95% CI: 1.12; 1.93) and SCA (OR: 1.36; 95% CI: 1.02; 1.81) was significantly associated with the likelihood of being HBP. However, when cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) (OR: 1.23; 95% CI: 0.91; 1.67) and body mass index (BMI) (OR: 1.31; 95% CI: 0.98; 1.75) were included on SCA model, the association between SCA with HBP did not showed significant results.
CONCLUSION: Children and adolescents who are not engaged in SCA or LTPA are more likely to be classified as having HBP; however, the relationship between SCA and HBP was dependent of CRF and BMI. Further, PA strategies should take these differences on the relationship between HBP, SCA and LTPA.