According to a new study from the University of Michigan, young women in their 20s consistently exercise less than young men. The results of the study will be published in the October issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

Phillippa Clarke, lead author of the study and a research at the U of M Institute for Social Research, says that the disparities in health behaviors are consistent with disparities in prevalence of obesity, particular among women.

This study is one of the first to look at the long-term patterns in weight related activities, and to assess how these patterns vary by race, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. It is based on data obtained every two years from 17,314 men and women who were aged 19 to 26 between 1984 and 2006.

Researchers looked at the trends over the 23 year period in six different health behaviors. They measured:

• How often they exercised vigorously (jogging, swimming, or calisthenics)

How often they reported eating breakfast

• How often they ate green vegetables and fruit
• How much television watched on an average weekday
• How often they got at least seven hours of sleep

What they found is:

• Men and women reported a steady decline in the frequency of getting at least seven hours of sleep each night
• The amount of time men and women spent watching TV remained relatively stable over time
• White women showed a steady increase in the frequency of eating breakfast
• Fruit and veggie consumption remained relatively stable among young adult adults, but consistently lower among black and Hispanic men and women in any given year
• Frequency of exercise remained relatively stable among young adult women, but among black women the frequency steadily declined
• Black and Hispanic women showed greater declines than white women in the frequency of getting at least seven hours of sleep a night.
• Black and Hispanic women were less likely to report eating breakfast and eating fruits and vegetables
• Men from lower socioeconomic backgrounds reported dramatic declines in sleep, after adjusting for race and ethnicity
• Minority racial and ethnic groups and women from lower socioeconimic groups reported watching television more often than whites and women from affluent backgrounds