Chloe Bedard, a Postdoctoral Fellow with the ARCH Lab, recently published a paper titled “Exploratory examination of the association between physical-mental multimorbidity and physical activity (PA) in children” in the journal Frontiers in Pediatrics.

Using data from the MY LIFE study, this paper examined whether multimorbidity was associated with physical activity, and whether there is a difference in the amount and between those with internalizing and externalizing disorders.

The authors found children with internalizing disorders had non-significantly fewer minutes of all intensities of PA (light, moderate, and vigorous), as well as fewer days meeting PA guidelines, whereas those with externalizing disorders had non-significantly more minutes of all intensities of PA and non-significantly more days meeting PA guidelines. Only the association between internalizing disorder and days meeting PA guidelines was statistically significant.

The authors note that this paper was exploratory in nature and further study will help establish if these findings are robust.