The aim of this study is to review the literature on lifestyle sports and lifestyle sport contexts with regard to the developmental potential they may represent in young people’s everyday lives. The review applies a relational developmental systems approach to youth development. The eligibility criteria are based on the phenomenon of interest and outcomes. Hence, we include studies examining the associations between young people performing lifestyle sports and potential developmental outcomes: mental, biological, social, and behavioral. The present study shows that the volume of research on informal lifestyle sport is rather extensive and that studies on the way these activity contexts may affect developmental processes in youth are diverse and wide ranging. The studies suggest that performing lifestyle sports may have several beneficial health and skills outcomes. Furthermore, positive associations are suggested between involvement in lifestyle sport contexts such as climbing, snowboarding, parkour, tricking, kiting, and surfing and (a) mental outcomes such joy, happiness, freedom, euphoria, motivation, self-efficacy, and well-being; (b) social outcomes such as gender equality, network building, social inclusion, interaction, friendship; and (c) behavioral outcomes such as identity, creativity, and expressions of masculinity and/or femininity. The review performed indicates that lifestyle sport contexts are flexible according to needs and desires that exist among the practitioners and that the human and democratic origins of these contexts make them supportive for positive movement experiences and for positive youth development. The findings have implications for PE teachers, social workers, policymakers, sport organizations, and urban architecture, in that providing lifestyle sport opportunities in the everyday lives of young people will foster a holistic development in a positive way.

Objectives: High maternal pre‐pregnancy body mass index (BMI), high birth weight, and rapid infant weight gain are associated with increased risk of childhood obesity. We examined whether moderate‐to‐vigorous physical activity (MVPA) or vigorous physical activity (VPA) in 9‐ to 12‐year‐olds modified the associations between these early life risk factors and subsequent body composition and BMI.Methods: We used data from a sub‐cohort of the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa), including 445 children with available data on accelerometer assessed physical activity (PA). All participants had data on BMI, 186 of them provided data on body composition (dual energy X‐ray absorptiometry (DXA)). We used multiple regression analyses to examine the modifying effect of PA by including interaction terms.Results: Maternal pre‐pregnancy BMI and infant weight gain were more strongly related to childhood body composition in boys than in girls. Higher VPA attenuated the association between maternal pre‐pregnancy BMI and BMI in boys (low VPA: B = 0.32, 95% CI = 0.22, 0.41; high VPA B = 0.22, 95% CI = 0.12, 0.31). Birth weight was unrelated to childhood body composition, and there was no effect modification by PA. PA attenuated the associations between infant weight gain and childhood fat mass (low MVPA: B = 2.32, 95% CI = 0.48, 4.17; high MVPA: B = 1.00, 95% CI = 0.10, 1.90) and percent fat (low MVPA: B = 3.35, 95% CI = 0.56, 6.14; high MVPA: B = 1.41, 95% CI = −0.06, 2.87) in boys, but not girls.Conclusion: Findings from this study suggest that MVPA and VPA may attenuate the increased risk of an unfavorable body composition and BMI due to high maternal pre‐pregnancy BMI and rapid infant weight gain in boys, but not in girls.

Objectives: Low and high birth weight is associated with higher levels of cardiometabolic risk factors and adiposity in children and adolescents, and increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and early mortality later in life. Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) is associated with lower cardiometabolic risk factors and may mitigate the detrimental consequences of high or low birth weight. Thus, we examined whether MVPA modified the associations between birth weight and cardiometabolic risk factors in children and adolescents. Methods: We used pooled individual data from 12 cohort- or cross-sectional studies including 9,100 children and adolescents. Birth weight was measured at birth or maternally reported retrospectively. Device-measured physical activity (PA) and cardiometabolic risk factors were measured in childhood or adolescence. We tested for associations between birth weight, MVPA, and cardiometabolic risk factors using multilevel linear regression, including study as a random factor. We tested for interaction between birth weight and MVPA by introducing the interaction term in the models (birth weight x MVPA). Results: Most of the associations between birth weight (kg) and cardiometabolic risk factors were not modified by MVPA (min/day), except between birth weight and waist circumference (cm) in children (p = 0.005) and HDL-cholesterol (mmol/l) in adolescents (p = 0.040). Sensitivity analyses suggested that some of the associations were modified by VPA, i.e., the associations between birth weight and diastolic blood pressure (mmHg) in children (p = 0.009) and LDL- cholesterol (mmol/l) (p = 0.009) and triglycerides (mmol/l) in adolescents (p = 0.028). Conclusion: MVPA appears not to consistently modify the associations between low birth weight and cardiometabolic risk. In contrast, MVPA may mitigate the association between higher birth weight and higher waist circumference in children. MVPA is consistently associated with a lower cardiometabolic risk across the birth weight spectrum. Optimal prenatal growth and subsequent PA are both important in relation to cardiometabolic health in children and adolescents.

Depression is associated with metabolic abnormalities linked to metabolic syndrome and tissue inflammation, but the interplay between metabolic markers and their association with subsequent depression is unknown. Therefore, we aimed to describe the network of metabolites and their prospective association with depressive symptoms. The Finnish Depression and Metabolic Syndrome in Adults (FDMSA) cohort, originally a prospective case-control study, comprised a group with Beck Depression Inventory (BDI)-I scores ≥10 at baseline, and controls (n = 319, BDI-I < 10); mean (sd) follow-up time: 7.4 (0.7) years. Serum metabolic biomarkers were determined by proton nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and depressive symptoms sum-score by using the BDI-I. We examined the prospective associations between metabolites at baseline and BDI score at follow-up utilizing multivariate linear regression, parsimonious predictions models and network analysis. Some metabolites tended to be either negatively (e.g. histidine) or positively associated (e.g. glycoprotein acetylation, creatinine and triglycerides in very large high density lipoproteins [XL-HDL-TG]) with depressive symptoms. None of the associations were significant after correction for multiple testing. The network analysis suggested high correlation among the metabolites, but that none of the metabolites directly influenced subsequent depressive symptoms. Although the sample size may be considered satisfactory in a prospective context, we cannot exclude the possibility that our study was underpowered. Our results suggest that the investigated metabolic biomarkers are not a driving force in the development of depressive symptoms. These findings should be confirmed in studies with larger samples and studies that account for the heterogeneity of depressive disorders.

Objective: We examined the possible impact of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI)‐trajectories describing the timing of different SSRI dosages on adverse perinatal outcomes. Design: Longitudinal register study. Setting: Study from Kuopio University Hospital Birth Register. Population or Sample: Altogether 553 mothers who reported using SSRIs in pregnancy were matched to a five‐fold comparison group ( n = 2765), based on depression, psychiatric diagnoses and age. Methods: We applied unsupervised k‐Means longitudinal clustering to identify four distinct patterns of SSRI use, and propensity score adjusted regression models based on generalised estimating equations to examine the associations between the exposure groups and the perinatal outcomes, using the unexposed group as reference. Secondary analyses assessed linear associations between average SSRI dose and outcomes. Main Outcome Measures: Birth weight, placental weight, placental‐to‐birth‐weight ratio (PBWR), umbilical cord length, gestational length, preterm birth (< 37 gestational weeks), low 5‐min Apgar score, neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admission. Results: Compared to the no SSRI group, we found no associations between the use of SSRI up to standard doses and the perinatal outcomes. However, the sustained high dose group (~twice the standard dose) displayed higher placental weight ( B = 36.9, 95% CI = 3.2, 70.7) and PBWR ( B = 1.54, 95% CI = 0.70, 2.38), and the risk of NICU admission was 2‐fold (95% CI = 1.05, 3.76), compared with the no SSRI group. The average SSRI dose was linearly associated with placental weight, PBWR, and umbilical cord length. Conclusions: SSRI use up to standard doses was not associated with adverse perinatal outcomes. However, linear dose–response associations and sustained higher doses suggest potentially reduced placental efficacy and increased risk of adverse perinatal health, warranting caution.