Prevalence and correlates of barriers to physical activity in Brazilian adults

Purpose: To investigate the prevalence and correlates of barriers to physicalactivity 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 theleisure-time section of the long International Physical Activity Questionnaire.Eight barriers were investigated: feel too old to exercise, have an injury ordisease, dislike exercising, being too tired to exercise, lack of money, fear ofinjuries, lack of company, and lack of time. These barriers were chosen after areview of the most-frequently reported barriers to physical activity in theliterature, and analysis of the most-frequently reported barriers in two pilotstudies using open questions.

Results: Eighty-five percent of the 3100 individuals interviewed reported atleast 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 worsesocioeconomic indicators were more likely to perceive most barriers. A strongdose-response relationship between the number of barriers and physicalinactivity was observed. After adjustment for potential confounders, dislikeexercising, feel too tired to exercise, lack of money, lack of company, and lackof time were significant predictors of physical inactivity.

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

Keywords: physical inactivity, exercise, physical fitness, epidemiology,health promotion, sedentarism.