Familial aggregation of physical activity levels in the Qu??bec family study

SIMONEN, R. L., L. PÉRUSSE, T. RANKINEN, T. RICE, D. C. RAO, and C. BOUCHARD. Familial aggregation of physical activity levels in the Québec family study. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., Vol. 34, No. 7, pp. 1137–1142, 2002. Purpose Familial aggregation of physical activity phenotypes was investigated in 696 subjects from 200 families of the Quebec Family Study. The mean age of offspring and parents was 27 and 53 yr, respectively. Methods The levels of physical activity were estimated using a 3-d diary and a questionnaire dealing with physical activity during the past year. Results An ANOVA performed on the age and sex adjusted physical activity phenotypes revealed that there were 1.40–1.52 times more variation in physical activity levels between families than within families (0.001