Likelihood of being Physically Inactive from a Nationally Representative sample of Autistic Children

ABSTRACT Despite the many health risks of physical inactivity, studies have demonstrated individual, family, and environmental determinants of inactivity for autistic children. However, these studies never examined these correlates at the same time. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore these ecological domains concurrently when examining physical inactivity correlates for autistic children. This study used data from the 2016-2020 National Survey of Children’s Health. The authors predicted physical inactivity while controlling for child, parental/household, and neighborhood correlates with autism status as the comparison group. When controlling for covariates, children with co-occurring autism and intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) (adjusted odds ratio (aOR)= 1.91, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.36-2.68) or ASD only (aOR = 1.91, CI: 1.48-2.48) were significantly more likely to be inactive when compared to children without autism or IDD. However, autism medicine and autism severity were not predictors for obese autistic children. These findings indicate that it is important to take a holistic, ecological approach when exploring the correlates of inactivity for autistic children.