Skip to main content
Download PDF
Download ePub

Chronotype and leisure-time physical activity among civil servants in Japan: a cross-sectional analysis of the Aichi workers’ cohort study

Archives of Public Health volume 82, Article number: 205 (2024) Cite this article

Abstract

Background

The association between chronotype and leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) remains unclear. We investigated the difference in regular LTPA and for a sufficient duration between those with evening-type (ET) and morning-type chronotypes (MT).

Methods

We conducted a cross-sectional analysis using the data of the Aichi Workers’ Cohort Study. It included 3,221 men (mean [standard deviation] age: 45.0 [11.6] years) and 1,294 women (39.8 [11.2] years). Chronotypes were determined with the reduced version of the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire. We calculated the metabolic equivalents (METs) consumed per week based on the four types of LTPA: strolling, brisk walking, light- and moderate-intensity PA, and vigorous-intensity PA. Regular LTPA and for a sufficient duration was defined as doing once or more per week and for 30 min or longer per session, respectively. Logistic regression analysis was conducted separately by sex to calculate odds ratios of ET for regular LTPA and for a sufficient duration, adjusted for age and other factors, for each type of LTPA.

Results

ET men consumed fewer total METs per week than MT men (p < .001), although this pattern is not found in women. Compared to MT men, ET men were less likely to be engaged in regular LTPA in all types of LTPA (prevalence and adjusted odds ratio [95% confidence interval]: strolling: 39.1% vs. 28.7%, 0.685 [0.524–0.895]; brisk walking: 23.9% vs. 14.4%, 0.639 [0.454–0.899]; light- and moderate-intensity PA: 15.4% vs. 8.4%, 0.613 [0.404–0.929]; vigorous-intensity PA: 21.4% vs. 16.8%, 0.715 [0.518–0.989]). They were less likely to spend a sufficient duration in brisk walking (25.9% vs. 16.5%, 0.635 [0.461–0.875]), light- and moderate-intensity PA (37.1% vs. 26.8%, 0.684 [0.521–0.899]), and vigorous-intensity PA (35.3% vs. 35.8%, 0.741 [0.568–0.968]). Compared with MT women, ET women were less likely to be engaged in strolling (30.5% vs. 22.2%, 0.629 [0.398–0.995]), and less likely to spend a sufficient duration in light- and moderate-intensity PA (27.3% vs. 15.3%, 0.561 [0.335–0.937]).

Conclusions

ET was inversely associated with LTPA in men and partly in women.

Peer Review reports

Text box 1. Contributions to the literature

• Although the association between chronotype and physical activity (PA) has been studied, few studies have exclusively focused on leisure-time PA (LTPA)

• We categorized LTPA based on intensity and examined whether Japanese civil servants with the evening-type chronotype were performing LTPA less frequency and for a shorter duration than those with the morning-type chronotype

• The associations between the evening-type chronotype and LTPA less frequently and for a shorter duration were found in both men and women, while the associations were more prominent in men than in women

Background

The optimal timing for physiological events such as sleep-wake timing and meal timing differs among individuals based on their chronotype. Individual chronotypes can be classified as morning-type (MT), neither-type (NT), or evening-type (ET), based on when they feel asleep, awake, and physically active [1]. Humans have a circadian rhythm with an approximately 24-hour cycle. Circadian clock genes synchronize all physiological functions to the earth’s 24-hour cycle [2, 3], and many specific loci regulate circadian rhythms [4] and are inheritable [5]. The relationship between chronotype and health has been studied extensively. For example, ET is reportedly associated with an increased prevalence of diabetes and psychological, neurological, respiratory, and gastrointestinal/abdominal disorders, resulting in an increased risk of death [6].

Physical activity (PA), particularly leisure-time PA (LTPA), reduces the incidence of cardiovascular diseases, breast cancer, colon cancer, and diabetes [7, 8]. Many individuals do not engage in adequate PA despite awareness of its positive health effects. A survey from Japan showed that only approximately 30% of adults were performing LTPA habitually [9]. The total PA consists of that performed in leisure time, such as sports and hobbies, and that performed for a daily living, such as housework, yard work, occupational activities, and transport [10]. Previous studies have primarily focused on the association between ET chronotype and the total PA. A systematic review [11] showed that ET workers engaged in lower levels of total PA than MT workers. A study from Hungary showed that female ET workers engaged in lower levels of total PA than female MT workers [12]. ET was associated with less amount of total PA and long sedentary hours among middle-aged men in northern Finland [13]. Older ET adults engaged in less amount of total PA and had worse physical functions related to daily living, such as walking speed and balance, than older MT adults in Korea [14]. The impact of chronotypes on exercise habits was also investigated. A 12-week follow-up study in Brazil showed that ET individuals dropped out from physical exercise programs in gyms more frequently than MT individuals [15]. However, few studies have only focused on the association between chronotype and LTPA. Only Maukonen et al. [16] reported an association between ET and a few amounts of LTPA in Finland, to our knowledge.

A measure of PA used in previous studies mostly was metabolic equivalents (METs) that are calculated with the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ). METs are the unit to indicate the intensities of PA. Although the importance of detailing LTPA type, frequency, and duration was advocated [17], this idea was little applied to previous studies that examined the association between chronotype and PA.

This study aimed to investigate the differences in LTPA between Japanese workers with ET and MT chronotypes by categorizing LTPA according to the frequency and duration of different types of LTPA at different intensities.

Methods

Study design

We conducted a cross-sectional analysis.

Participants

We used the data from the Aichi Workers’ Cohort Study collected in 2018. This prospective cohort study was launched in 1997 enrolling civil servants in Aichi Prefecture [18,19,20,21]. Questionnaire surveys on their lifestyles were administered approximately every 5 years for this cohort study. In the 2018 survey, the eligible participants were 11,954 full-time civil servants. A total of 5,543 (46.4%) provided consent and responded to the survey. We excluded participants who did not completely respond to the reduced version of the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (rMEQ) [22] (n = 58) and who did not report a physical disability in daily living (n = 170). We also excluded those who were working late at night or in shifts (n = 800) because of the different distribution of chronotypes [23]. We finally analyzed the remaining 4,515 workers (37.8%).

Study variables

Chronotype

The rMEQ was used to determine the chronotype of the subjects [22]. The questionnaire comprised the following five items: (1) “At what time of the day do you think that you reach your ‘feeling best’ peak?” The possible responses and the score assigned to the response were: 5:00–8:00 (score: 5); 8:00–10:00 (score: 4); 10:00–17:00 (score: 3); 17:00–22:00 (score: 2); 22:00–5:00 (score: 1); (2) “At what time in the evening do you feel tired and, as a result, in need of sleep?” 20:00–21:00 (score: 5); 21:00–22:15 (score: 4); 22:15 − 0:45 (score: 3); 0:45 − 2:00 (score: 2); later than 2:00 (score: 1); (3) “Considering only your own ‘feeling best’ rhythm, at what time would you get up if you were entirely free to plan your day?” 5:00–6:30 (score: 5); 6:30 − 7:45 (score: 4); 7:45 − 9:45 (score: 3); 9:45 − 11:00 (score: 2); later than 11:00 (score: 1); (4) “During the first half hour after having woken in the morning, how tired do you feel?” Very tired (score: 1); Fairly tired (score: 2); Fairly refreshed (score: 3); Very refreshed (score: 4); and (5) “One hears about ‘morning’ and ‘evening’ type of people. Which ONE of these types do you consider yourself to be?” Definitely a ‘morning’ type (score: 6); Rather more a ‘morning’ type than an ‘evening’ type (score: 4); Rather more an ‘evening’ type than a ‘morning’ type (score: 2); Definitely an ‘evening’ type (score: 0). Those with the total scores of 4–11 were categorized as ET, 12–17 as NT, and 18–25 as MT.

LTPA and METs

We measured LTPA and METs by partly using the Japan Public Health Center-based prospective study-physical activity questionnaire (JPHC-PAQ) [24, 25]. Its validity on LTPA was guaranteed by previous studies [24, 25]. The intensity of physical activities and METs based on the responses to the JPHC-PAQ were well correlated with those based on the 24-hour physical activity record [24, 25].

The participants were asked to indicate the frequency of LTPA during the preceding year from the following five possible responses: less than once a month, once to three times a month, once or twice a week, three or four times a week, and almost every day. They were also asked to indicate the duration of that LTPA per session from the following six responses: < 30 min, 30–59 min, 1–2 h, 2–3 h, 3–4 h, and > 4 h. The participants were asked to indicate frequency and duration for the following four types of LTPA: strolling, brisk walking, light- and moderate-intensity PA, such as golf, gateball, and gardening, and vigorous-intensity PA, such as tennis, jogging, aerobics, and swimming. We defined regular LTPA and for a sufficient duration as doing once or more per week and 30 min or longer per session, respectively, referring to the definition of the National Health and Nutrition Survey, Japan [9] and the recommendation of the Japan Sports Agency [26].

For the calculation of METs, intensities of strolling, brisk walking, light- and moderate-intensity PA, and vigorous-intensity PA were set at 2.8, 4, 3, and 6 METs/hour, respectively. These METs were defined by referring to the existing study [24]. To estimate the total weekly METs consumed by LTPA for each participant, LTPA frequency of less than once a month, one to three times a month, once or twice a week, three to four times a week, and almost every day were converted to 0, 0.5, 1.5, 3.5, and 7 times/week, respectively. LTPA duration of < 30 min, 30–59 min, 1–2 h, 2–3 h, 3–4 h, and > 4 h were converted to 0.25, 0.75, 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, and 4 h, respectively [27]. Referring to a previous Japanese study [28], we classified the subjects into four groups based on the total weekly METs: 0; more than 0 and 7.5 or less; more than 7.5 and 15 or less; and more than 15.

Potential confounders

Referring to the existing evidence [29,30,31,32,33,34], we assessed body mass index (BMI), medicine use, low back pain, knee pain, current drinking, and current smoking as the potential confounders or the association between chronotype and LTPA. Furthermore, we also introduced the number of days for which the subjects worked overtime for longer than 5 h. BMI was calculated based on the self-reported height (cm) and weight (kg). Medication use was inquired for hypertension, dyslipidemia, diabetes, gout, osteoporosis, stroke, depression, or any other diseases. The presence of low back pain and knee pain as well as smoking and drinking habits and the number of days of overtime working for longer than 5 h were self-reported.

Statistical analyses

Owing to potential differences by sex in the frequency and duration of LTPA, all analyses were conducted separately by sex [9, 35,36,37,38]. Differences in the categories of the total weekly METs consumed for LTPA differed according to chronotype were examined using the chi-square test. Binomial logistic regression analysis was adopted to investigate the association between chronotype and LTPA frequency and duration adjusted for age, BMI, medication use, low back pain, knee pain, current smoking, current drinking, and the number of days overtime work over 5 h. A variance inflation factors (VIF) of 10 or greater suggested multicollinearity. A two-way analysis of variance was used to examine the interaction of sex and chronotype for regular LTPA and for a sufficient duration. P < .05 was considered statistically significant. All analyses were calculated using the IBM SPSS Statistics version 28.

Results

The prevalence of MT and ET were 37.6% and 11.5% in men and 37.9% and 11.4% in women, respectively (Table 1). The prevalence did not differ between men and women. The total METs per week consumed by LTPA was higher in men than in women. Men were more likely to engage in regular LTPA of all intensities, i.e., strolling, brisk walking, light- and moderate-intensity activities, and vigorous-intensity activities, compared to women. Men were more likely to perform LTPA for sufficient duration in light and moderate intensity and vigorous intensity, compared to women. BMI, the prevalence of low back pain, medication use, current smoking, and current drinking differed significantly between men and women. MT individuals were older than NT and ET individuals. The mean (standard deviation) ages of MT, NT, and ET individuals were 48.6 (10.2), 43.6 (11.7), and 39.3 (11.5) years old in men, 41.3 (10.8), 39.1 (11.2), and 37.4 (11.4) years old in women, respectively.

Table 1 Characteristics of subjects
Full size table

Chronotype was significantly associated with the METs consumed by LTPA per week in men. A similar tendency was observed in women, although it is not statistically significant (Table 2).

Table 2 Metabolic equivalents (METs) consumed per week by leisure-time physical activity: compared by type of chronotype
Full size table

Table 3 shows the associations between chronotypes and regular LTPA and for a sufficient duration in men. ET men are less likely to engage in regular LTPA all types of LTPA, compared to MT men. ET men were not strolling for a sufficient duration more frequently than MT men. MT men consumed a sufficient duration for brisk walking, light- and moderate-intensity PA, and vigorous-intensity PA more frequently than ET men. We found no VIF of 10 or greater.

Table 3 Proportions of LTPA and odds ratios of chronotype on LTPA in men (n = 3221)
Full size table

Table 4 shows the associations between chronotype and regular LTPA and sufficient duration in women. ET women were less likely to engage in only strolling regularly than MT women. This pattern was not found for brisk walking, light- and moderate-intensity, and vigorous-intensity PA. Regarding LTPA for a sufficient duration, MT was associated only with light- and moderate-intensity PA in women. Overall, women were less significantly associated with chronotype and regular LTPA and sufficient duration than men. We found no VIF of 10 or greater.

Table 4 Proportions of LTPA and odds ratios of chronotype on LTPA in women (n = 1294)
Full size table

We found a significant interaction of sex and chronotype for brisk walking for a sufficient duration (F = 3.136, p = .044). We did not find a significant interaction for doing the other types of LTPA for a sufficient duration or for regular LTPA.

Discussion

We examined the difference in the frequency and duration of LTPA between MT and ET civil servants in Japan. We found that ET men consumed fewer METs by LTPA per week than MT men. Compared with MT men, ET men are less likely to engage in regular LTPA for all kinds of LTPA. ET men were less likely to perform brisk walking, light- and moderate-intensity PA, and vigorous-intensity PA for a sufficient duration than MT men. Compared with MT women, ET women are less likely to engage in regular LTPA in strolling. ET women were performing light- and moderate-intensity PA for a sufficient duration more often than MT women.

This study excluded shift workers. It is noted that a high proportion of shift workers are ET, compared to fixed workers [23]. We aimed to examine the association between chronotype and LTPA, not shift working and LTPA. Our findings may be supported by previous behavioral findings. Miyazaki et al. [39] measured PA amounts of college students in Japan throughout the week. They found that ET students exhibited smaller PA amounts than MT students on Saturdays, while the PA levels of both types of students were of no difference on weekdays. Roenneberg et al. [40] showed that ET individuals woke up later than MT individuals on holidays, while both MT and ET individuals presented similar sleep patterns, i.e., similar sleep onset and wake-up times, on workdays. These findings suggest a potential phenomenon underlying our findings that late wake-up of ET people on weekends reduces the amount of time available for LTPA, resulting in a small amount of LTPA. A limitation of our study is that we had no data to determine whether the duration of leisure time and LTPA differed between weekdays and holidays and by chronotype. Further research is needed to address this question.

Our novelty lies in detailing LTPA type, frequency, and duration, which helped us unveil the pattern of LTPA associated with chronotype and its similarity between and difference by sex. Chronotype was not associated with the total weekly METs consumed by LTPA in women. However, ET women were less likely to engage in strolling and brisk walking regularly and they also showed a lower duration for light- and moderate-intensity PA when compared to MT women. Another interesting finding is that there was no difference in the prevalence of LTPA for a sufficient duration among MT, NT, and ET women, except for light- and moderate-intensity PA. It could suggest that once ET women begin strolling, brisk walking, and vigorous-intensity PA, they continue the LTPA as long as MT women do. This finding was similar to that for men regarding strolling, but not regarding brisk walking and vigorous-intensity PA. We found a significant sex-and-chronotype interaction for brisk walking, while we failed it for vigorous-intensity PA. This series of findings suggests the difference between men and women in how long they keep performing LTPA once they begin it, warranting future studies to detail it.

Although the primary aim of this study was to compare MT and ET individuals in terms of the frequency and duration of LTPA, we also found interesting results regarding the variances between MT and NT individuals. NT men engaged in regular and sufficiently long LTPA more often than MT men. NT women performed light- and moderate-intensity PA less frequently than MT women. Similar findings were observed in other populations as well. Sus et al. found that older adults with NT chronotype had lower levels of PA compared to those with MT chronotype [41]. Yang et al. reported a correlation between the chronotype scores and the frequency of engaging in light- and moderate-intensity PA among school-age children [42]. It would be valuable to further investigate whether NT individuals exercise less frequently and for a shorter duration across various populations.

We thought that age would confound the association between chronotype and LTPA at the time of planning the present study. Previous studies reported that both the chronotype [37] and the frequency and duration of LTPA [43, 44] varied by age. In our study, the association between ET and performing vigorous-intensity PA for sufficient duration in men became prominent when age was adjusted in the logistic regression analysis. The fact in our study is that the older subjects aged 40 years old or older reported ET and were performing vigorous-intensity PA for sufficient duration less frequently than the younger subjects aged less than 40 years old (Supplementary Tables 1–3), supporting our idea that age must be adjusted when examining the association between chronotype and LTPA.

We here discuss the prevalence of ET and its effect on the present findings. There are few existing reports on the prevalence of ET in Japan. A previous study in Japan reported that the prevalence of ET evaluated with the MEQ was only 2.3% in male chemical factory employees [45]. Our study showed a much higher prevalence of ET in men, 11.5%. The prevalence of ET could differ by occupation. In addition, the prevalence of ET did not differ by sex in our study, meaning that women also presented a high prevalence of ET, 11.4%. A similar finding was reported in Japan [38]. We found few references on the associations between occupational types and chronotype or LTPA. On the other hand, ET was more prevalent in working-age men than working-aged women in Germany and Switzerland [29, 37]. The high prevalence of ET in both men and women might lead to discovering the association between ET and performing LTPA less frequently and not for 30 min or longer in both men and women in our study.

We here discuss the validity of measuring LTPA in our study. We used the JPHC-PAQ that was validated to measure LTPA and METs [24, 25]. We observed that women were performing LTPA less than men. This finding is compatible with the existing data. According to the data of the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare, Japan [9], 20.2% of men and 14.9% of women aged 30 to 50 are performing LTPA twice or more a week and 30 min or longer a session. This kind of difference is observed also in other countries. A study conducted in a rural Midwestern U.S. community showed that women spend 41% less time per week performing moderate- and vigorous-intensity PA than men [46]. In addition, a study that recruited subjects from 12 countries showed that women have fewer odds of performing LTPA than men [47]. Therefore, we believe that our way of measuring how often and how long they were performing LTPA was valid.

Study limitation

First, owing to the cross-sectional study design, we could not determine a causal relationship between chronotype and LTPA. Longitudinal studies are necessary to determine causal relationships. In this study, we asked the subjects to recall the frequency and duration of LTPA for the previous 12 months. We did not indicate the recall period for the chronotype. Therefore, the results of the present study could suggest the impact of LTPA on chronotype. However, the extent to which people accurately recall things from the past varies by person. Longitudinal studies are essential to avoid the recall bias and determine the causal relationship. Second, we discuss the possibility that the confounders we chose could as the intermediates. We chose the confounders by reference to the existing literature [29,30,31,32,33,34]. However, diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes, and stroke, may influence chronotype and LTPA, while they could be on the causal path between them, for example. Namely, some factors that we employed as the confounders could intermediate the association between chronotype and LTPA. Finally, this study focused only on civil servants working in a prefecture in Japan. The prevalence of ET and LTPA could differ by occupation. It is unclear whether our findings can be generalized to individuals of other occupations.

Conclusions

We examined the associations between chronotype and LTPA. Men and women shared the associations between ET and a low level of LTPA, although there are some differences in the findings between men and women. Further research is needed to detail the causal relationship between chronotype and LTPA and the difference by sex in various occupational settings.

Data availability

No datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

Abbreviations

ANOVA:

Analysis of variance

BMI:

Body mass index

ET:

Evening type

IPAQ:

International Physical Activity Questionnaire

METs:

Metabolic equivalents

MT:

Morning type

NT:

Neither type

PA:

Physical activity

rMEQ:

Reduced version of the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire

References

  1. Adan A, Archer SN, Hidalgo MP, Di Milia L, Natale V, Randler C. Circadian typology: a comprehensive review. Chronobiol Int. 2012;29:1153–75.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Halberg F. Circadian (about twenty-four-hour) rhythms in experimental medicine. Proc R Soc Med. 1963;56:253–7.

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  3. Roenneberg T, Merrow M. The circadian clock and human health. Curr Biol. 2016;26:R432–43.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Jones SE, Lane JM, Wood AR, van Hees VT, Tyrrell J, Beaumont RN, et al. Genome-wide association analyses of chronotype in 697,828 individuals provides insights into circadian rhythms. Nat Commun. 2019;10:343.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  5. Nikhil KL, Korge S, Kramer A. Heritable gene expression variability and stochasticity govern clonal heterogeneity in circadian period. PLOS Biol. 2020;18:e3000792.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  6. Knutson KL, von Schantz M. Associations between chrono-type, morbidity and mortality in the UK Biobank cohort. Chronobiol Int. 2018;35:1045–53.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  7. Li J, Siegrist J. Physical activity and risk of cardiovascular disease-a meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2012;9:391–407.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  8. Kyu HH, Bachman VF, Alexander LT, Mumford JE, Afshin A, Estep K, et al. Physical activity and risk of breast cancer, colon cancer, diabetes, ischemic heart disease, and ischemic stroke events: systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis for the global burden of Disease Study 2013. BMJ. 2016;354:i3857.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  9. The National Health and Nutrition Survey (NHNS) Japan, 2018, summary. Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare, Japan, Tokyo. 2020. https://www.nibiohn.go.jp/eiken/kenkounippon21/en/eiyouchousa/index.html Accessed 23 March 2024.

  10. Craig C, Marshall A, Sjöström M, Bauman A, Booth M, Ainsworth B, Pratt M, Ekelund U, Yngve A, Sallis J, Oja P. International physical activity questionnaire: 12-Country reliability and validity. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2003;35:1381–95.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Sempere-Rubio N, Aguas M, Faubel R. Association between chronotype, physical activity and sedentary behaviour: a systematic review. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022;19:9646.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  12. Haraszti RÁ, Purebl G, Salavecz G, Poole L, Dockray S, Steptoe A. Morningness-eveningness interferes with perceived health, physical activity, diet and stress levels in working women: a cross-sectional study. Chronobiol Int. 2014;31:829–37.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Nauha L, Jurvelin H, Ala-Mursula L, Niemelä M, Jämsä T, Kangas M, et al. Chronotypes and objectively measured physical activity and sedentary time at midlife. Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2020;30:1930–8.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Thapa N, Kim B, Yang JG, Park HJ, Jang M, Son HE, et al. The relationship between chronotype, physical activity and the estimated risk of dementia in community-dwelling older adults. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020;17:3701.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  15. Back FA, Hino AAF, Bojarski WG, Aurélio JMG, de Castro Moreno CR, Louzada FM. Evening chronotype predicts dropout of physical exercise: a prospective analysis. Sport Sci Health. 2023;19:309–19.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Maukonen M, Kanerva N, Partonen T, Kronholm E, Tapanainen H, Kontto J, et al. Chronotype differences in timing of energy and macronutrient intakes: a population-based study in adults. Obes (Silver Spring). 2017;25:608–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Biernat E, Piątkowska M. Leisure time physical activity among employed and unemployed women in Poland. Hong Kong J Occup Ther. 2017;29:47–54.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  18. Terabe M, Kitajima T, Ota A, Yatsuya H, Iwata N. Association between long-term alcohol consumption and insomnia symptoms in civil servants: Aichi Workers’ Cohort Study. Fujita Med J. 2022;8:103–7.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  19. Li Y, Yatsuya H, Wang C, Uemura M, Matsunaga M, He Y, et al. Dietary patterns derived from reduced Rank Regression are Associated with the 5-Year occurrence of metabolic syndrome: Aichi Workers’ Cohort Study. Nutrients. 2022;14:3019.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  20. Song Z, He Y, Chiang C, Al-Shoaibi AAA, Saif-Ur-Rahman KM, Mamun MR, et al. Long-term variability and change trend of systolic blood pressure and risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus in middle-aged Japanese individuals: findings of the Aichi Workers’ Cohort Study. Hypertens Res. 2022;45:1772–80.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Al-Shoaibi AAA, Li Y, Song Z, Chiang C, Hirakawa Y, Saif-Ur-Rahman KM, et al. Association of Low-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol with risk of Coronary Heart Disease and Stroke among Middle-aged Japanese workers: an analysis using inverse probability weighting. J Atheroscler Thromb. 2023;30:455–66.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Adan A, Almirall H. Horne & Östberg morningness-eveningness questionnaire: a reduced scale. Pers Individ Dif 1991;12, 241 – 53.

  23. Ahn J, Yeo H, Lee S, et al. Shift schedules and circadian preferences: the association with sleep and mood. Front Public Health. 2024;12:1283543.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  24. Kikuchi H, Inoue S, Odagir Y, Inoue M, Sawada N, Noda M, et al. Intensity-specific validity and reliability of the Japan Public Health Center-based prospective study-physical activity questionnaire. Prev Med Rep. 2020;20:101169.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  25. Fujii H, Yamamoto S, Takeda-imai F, Inoue M, Tsugane S, Kadowaki T, Noda M. Validity and applicability of a simple questionnaire for the estimation of total and domain-specific physical activity. Diabetol Int. 2011;2:47–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Spo-tsu no zisshi. zyoukyou tou ni kansuru yoron chosa, heisei 30 nendo. (Public opinion poll on the status of sports in the fiscal year 2018. Japan Sports Agency. https://www.mext.go.jp/sports/b_menu/toukei/chousa04/sports/1415963.htm. Accessed 23 March 2024. (written in Japanese).

  27. Inoue M, Sawada N, Tsuda S. Multi cohort study; the Japan Public Health Center-based prospective study (JPHC Study). Res Exer Epidemiol. 2014;16:42–9.

    Google Scholar 

  28. Kuwahara K, Uehara A, Yamamoto M, Nakagawa T, Honda T, Yamamoto S, et al. Current status of health among workers in Japan: results from the Japan Epidemiology Collaboration on Occupational Health Study for Japan Epidemiology Collaboration on Occupational Health Study Group. Ind Health. 2016;54:505–14.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  29. Randler C, Haun J, Schaal S. Assessing the influence of sleep-wake variables on body mass index (BMI) in adolescents. Eur J Phychol. 2013;9:339–47.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Cleven L, Krell-Roesch J, Nigg C, Woll A. The association between physical activity with incident obesity, coronary heart disease, diabetes and hypertension in adults: a systematic review of longitudinal studies published after 2012. BMC Public Health. 2020;20:726.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  31. Ng R, Sutradhar R, Yao Z, Wodchis W, Rosella L. Smoking, drinking, diet and physical activity - modifiable lifestyle risk factors and their associations with age to first chronic disease. Int J Epidemiol. 2020;49:113–30.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  32. Wittmann M, Dinich J, Merrow M, Roenneberg T. Social Jetlag: misalignment of biological and social time. Chronobiol Int. 2006;23:497–509.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  33. Heredia N, Nguyen N, Martinez B, Obasi E, McNeill L. The positive association between physical activity and alcohol use in African American adults. Prev Med Rep. 2021;23:101487.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  34. Zhang J, Cao Y, Mo H, Feng R. The association between different types of physical activity and smoking behavior. BMC Psychiatry. 2023;23:927.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  35. Wennman H, Kronholm E, Partonen T, Tolvanen A, Peltonen M, Vasankari T, Borodulin K. Physical activity and sleep profiles in Finnish men and women. BMC Public Health. 2014;14:82.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  36. Randler C, Freyth-Weber K, Rahafar A, Florez A, Kriegs J. Morningness-eveningness in a large sample of German adolescents and adults. Heliyon. 2016;2:11.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Roenneberg T, Kuehnle T, Pramstaller PP, Ricken J, Havel M, Guth A, Merrow M. A marker for the end of adolescence. Curr Biol. 2004;14:R1038–9.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  38. Kageyama M, Tatsumi A, Fujino Y, Watai I. Association between social jetlag and presenteeism in Japanese industry: a cross-sectional study. Sangyo Eiseigaku Zasshi. 2022;64:12–21. (written in Japanese).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  39. Miyazaki R, Ando H, Ayabe M, Hamasaki T, Higuchi Y, Oshita K, et al. The CLOCK 3111T/C polymorphism is associated with hour-by-hour physical activity levels only on weekends among Japanese male and female university students. Physiol Behav. 2022;247:113705.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  40. Roenneberg T, Wirz-Justice A, Merrow M. Life between clocks: daily temporal patterns of human chronotypes. J Biol Rhythms 2003;18:80–90.

  41. Sus S, Yang H, Kim N, Yu J, Choi S, Yun C, Shin C. Chronotype Differences in Health Behaviors and Health-Related Quality of Life: a Population-based study among aged and older adults. Behav Sleep Med. 2017;15:361–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Yang Y, Li S, Zhang Y, Wang F, Jiang D, Wang S, Cao P, Gong Q. Chronotype is associated with eating behaviors, physical activity and overweight in school-aged children. Nutr J. 2023;22:50.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  43. Mielke G, Burton N, Brown W. Accelerometer-measured physical activity in mid-age Australian adults. BMC Public Health. 2022;22:1952.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  44. Fernandez-Navarro P, Aragones M, Ley V. Leisure-time physical activity and prevalence of non-communicable pathologies and prescription medication in Spain. PLoS ONE. 2018;13:e0191542.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  45. Furusawa M, Okubo Y, Kuroda R, Umekage T, Nagashima S, Suwazono Y. Relationship between morningness-eveningness typology and cumulative fatigue or depression among Japanese male workers. Ind Health. 2015;53:361–7.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  46. Beck A, Serrano N, Toler A, Brownson R. Multilevel correlates of domain-specific physical activity among rural adults – a cross-sectional. BMC Public Health. 2022;22:2150.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  47. Mitáš J, Cerin E, Reis R, Conway T, Cain K, Adams M, Schofield G, Sarmiento O, Christiansen L, Davey R. Do associations of sex, age and education with transport and leisure-time physical activity differ across 17 cities in 12 countries? Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2019;16:121.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank Editage (https://www.editage.jp/) for editing the manuscript.

Funding

This work was funded in part by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology/ Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI (grant numbers 17790384, 22390133, 23659346, 26293153, 18H03057, and 22H03349 to H.Y., and 19K10631 to A.O.), Health and Labour Sciences research grants for Comprehensive Research on Cardiovascular and Life-Style Related Diseases: (H26-Junkankitou [Seisaku]-Ippan-001, H29-Junkankitou [Seishuu]-Ippan-003, 20FA1002, and 23FA1008) and for Occupational Health (23JA1006) from the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare, the Japan Atherosclerosis Prevention Fund (to H.Y.), the Aichi Health Promotion Foundation (to H.Y.), the Uehara Memorial Fund (to H.Y.), and the Noguchi Medical Research Institute (to H.Y.). The funders had no role in the study design, collection, analysis, data interpretation, writing of the manuscript, or decision to publish the results. This article does not represent the official views of the funders.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Public Health, Fujita Health University School of Medicine, Toyoake, Japan

    Ryusei Okegawa, Yupeng He, Masaaki Matsunaga, May Thet Khine & Atsuhiko Ota

  2. Department of Public Health and Health Systems, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan

    Yuanying Li & Hiroshi Yatsuya

  3. Department of Psychiatry, Fujita Health University School of Medicine, Toyoake, Japan

    Tsuyoshi Kitajima

Authors
  1. Ryusei Okegawa
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  2. Yupeng He
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  3. Masaaki Matsunaga
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  4. May Thet Khine
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  5. Yuanying Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  6. Tsuyoshi Kitajima
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  7. Hiroshi Yatsuya
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  8. Atsuhiko Ota
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

R.O., H.Y., and A.O. conceived the study. H.Y. collected data. R.O. and A.O. analyzed the data. R.O., H.Y., and A.O. interpreted the results and drafted the manuscript. All the authors critically revised the draft and approved the final manuscript. H.Y. and A.O. obtained grants for this study.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Atsuhiko Ota.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

This study adhered to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Informed consent was obtained from all participants. Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Board of Fujita Health University (No. HM 20–416).

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary Material 1

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Okegawa, R., He, Y., Matsunaga, M. et al. Chronotype and leisure-time physical activity among civil servants in Japan: a cross-sectional analysis of the Aichi workers’ cohort study. Arch Public Health 82, 205 (2024). https://doiorg.publicaciones.saludcastillayleon.es/10.1186/s13690-024-01440-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doiorg.publicaciones.saludcastillayleon.es/10.1186/s13690-024-01440-z

Keywords

Archives of Public Health

ISSN: 2049-3258