Abstract

The purpose of this study was to describe the accelerometry-based characteristics of overall sedentary behavior (SB) and sitting among adults under free-living conditions. Thirty-six (mean age 47.6 years) volunteers carried a waist-worn accelerometer for ≥4 days with data ≥600 min/d during 14 consecutive days. A machine learning (ML) based method was used to classify the patterns of SB and sitting from raw 3D acceleration. The participants spent most (69.3%) of their waking time in SB, and a half (52.2%) of the SB was performed in a sitting posture. Men broke their overall sedentary time less often (4.1 vs. 6.1 bouts/h), but women sat more; however, women broke their sitting time as often as men (7.6 bouts/h). This study confirms that SB and sitting can be distinguished using ML methods, and more information about SB can be achieved when overall SB and sitting are analyzed separately in free-living conditions.