Study objective: To use ecological momentary assessment to describe how adolescent girls in the United Kingdom spend their leisure time.
Design: Cross-sectional, stratified, random sample from secondary schools in 15 regions within the United Kingdom. The data are from a larger study of adolescent lifestyles (Project STIL).
Participants: A total of 923 girls with a mean age of 14.7 years (range 12.5-17.6 years). The majority were white-European (88.7%).
Main results: Across all behaviours, television viewing occupied the most leisure time on both weekdays and weekend days. The five most time consuming sedentary weekday activities occupied on average 262.9 minutes per weekday and 400 minutes per weekend day. In contrast, only 44.2 minutes was occupied by active transport or sports and exercise per weekday, and 53 minutes per weekend day. Only a minority watched more than 4 hours of TV per day (3.3% on weekdays and 20.7% on weekend days). Computer use is low in this group. Some differences were noted in the means and prevalences between weekend and weekdays, most likely reflecting the greater discretionary time available at the weekend. Few age differences were noted.
Conclusions: Adolescent girls engage in a variety of behaviours that contribute to an overall lifestyle that may be active or sedentary. Effective physical activity promotion strategies must focus on facilitating shifts towards healthy overall patterns of behaviour rather than shifts in any one single behaviour.