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CARDIOVASCULAR JOURNAL OF AFRICA • Volume 30, No 5, September/October 2019
AFRICA
265
Another reason for this finding could be related to the
parental and marriage status of the adult participants in this
study. Bellows-Rieken
28
noted that gender may have a moderating
influence on physical activity during parenthood, with nascent
mothers experiencing a substantial decline in physical activity,
since African women are traditionally the primary caregivers.
Moreover, Verhoef and Love
29
reported that for women who are
mothers, the amount of leisure time available to them was one
of the most important predictors of participation in physical
activity. The implication is that South African adult women
may not have adequate time to engage in meaningful physical
activity because they may spend more time engaged in parenting
responsibilities. Therefore physical inactivity might be a major
health risk factor for African women, and increases in rates of
morbidity and mortality may be expected.
14
Women could gain
from gender-sensitive physical activity interventions that have
the potential to promote participation in physical activity and
thus develop a healthier population.
Geographical location was also found to be a significant
predictor of physical activity, with rural participants engaging
in more physical activity than their urban counterparts. As
in the current study, a study that examined differences in
sedentary lifestyle of rural and urban participants in Nigeria
showed that urban participants were more sedentary than their
rural counterparts.
30
Similarly, in Cameroon, it was found that
urban dwellers reported low physical activity levels and had a
higher prevalence of the metabolic syndrome than their rural
counterparts.
31
Furthermore, Jayamani
et al.
32
also reported that
Table 2. Frequency distributions of physical activity for both rural and urban participants
Physical activity
Fisher’s
exact test
(
p
-value)
Rural (
n
=
117)
n
% Urban (
n
=
202)
n
%
Do you engage in physical activity
Do you engage in physical activity
Yes
107 91.5 Yes
170 84.2 0.000**
No
10 8.5 No
32 15.8
What are these physical activities (most frequent physical
activities > 10%)
What are these physical activities (most frequent physical
activities > 10%)
Walking
18 15.4 Household chores
69 34.2
#
Household chores
22 18.8 Household chores
+
walking
68 33.7
Household chores
+
gardening
18 15.4
What are these physical activities (least frequent physical
activities < 5%)
What are these physical activities (least frequent physical
activities < 5%)
Home repair
3 2.6 Walking
7 3.5
#
Home repair
+
gardening
+
conditioning exercise
1 0.9 Gardening
2 1
Home repair
+
household chores
1 0.9 Occupation
4 2
Household chores
+
conditioning exercise
1 0.9 Walking
+
gardening
1 0.5
Religious exercise
+
gardening
1 0.9 Household chores
+
gardening
2 1
Home repair
+
gardening
2 1.7 Walking
+
household chores
+
gardening
2 1
Walking
+
conditioning exercise
+
household chores
+
gardening
1 0.9 Household chores
+
conditioning exercise
2 1
Household chores
+
occupation
1 0.9 Household chores
+
occupation
2 1
Household chores
+
conditioning exercise
+
walking
6 3
Walking
+
occupation
2 1
Household chores
+
home repair
+
walking
+
conditioning
exercise
1 0.5
Gardening
+
walking
+
conditioning exercise
1 0.5
Home repair
+
walking
1 0.5
How much time do you spend on these activities
How much time do you spend on these activities
1–30 min
14 12
1–30 min
91 45.0 0.000**
31–60 min
18 15.4 31–60 min
36 17.8
1–1:30
21 17.9 1–1:30
15 7.4
1:30–2 h
25 21.4 1:30–2 h
12 5.9
> 2 h
28 23.9 > 2 h
16 7.9
PA METs
PA METs
1.6–2.9 METs (light activity)
0 0
1.6–2.9 METs (light activity)
0 0 0.013
3–5.9 METs (moderate activity)
49 41.9 3–5.9 METs (moderate activity)
78 38.6
≥ 6 METs (vigorous activity)
57 48.7 ≥ 6 METs (vigorous activity)
92 45.5
METs
=
metabolic equivalent of task; PA
=
physical activity; min
=
minutes; h
=
hours. For the section ‘What are these physical activities’ within the table under ‘Physi-
cal activity’, only the most frequent (> 10% of participants) and least frequent activities (< 5% of participants) are reported, therefore it is to be expected that the total
number of participants that engage in these activities is less than the total number of both rural and urban participants. For rural participants, 11 (9.4%) had missing
data on the questions ‘What are these activities’ and ‘How much time do you spend on these activities’, and therefore data on PA METs. For urban participants, 32
(15.8%) had missing data on the questions ‘What are these activities’ and ‘How much time do you spend on these activities’, and therefore data on PA METs.
*Statistically significant at the 95% confidence level; **statistically significant at the 99% confidence level.
#
Fisher’s exact test could not be calculated because of the
differences in the most-frequent and least-frequent physical activities between rural and urban participants.
Table 3. Multiple regression analysis (
n
=
858)
Model
Predictors
Outcome
R
2
β
1
Age
Gender
Location
Employment status
PA METs
0.034*
–0.060
0.118*
–0.112*
–0.049
**
p
< 0.001. PA METs
=
physical activity metabolic equivalent of task;
β
: stan-
dardised coefficient;
R
2
: coefficient of determination.