Exercise Snacking and Cardiometabolic Health

Regular physical activity reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes,obesity, and other chronic health conditions. Despite these well‐established benefits,many young adults do not achieve recommended levels of physical activity. Commonlyreported barriers include limited time, competing academic or work demands, anddifficulty maintaining structured exercise programs.Exercise snacking, defined as accumulating multiple brief bouts of moderate‐to‐vigorousphysical activity throughout the day, has emerged as a potential strategy for increasingphysical activity while minimizing many of the barriers associated with traditionalexercise programs. Although short bouts of physical activity have demonstrated favorableacute physiological effects, relatively few randomized controlled trials have evaluatedwhether exercise snacking produces sustained improvements in objectively measuredphysical activity, physical fitness, cardiometabolic health, and psychological outcomesin free‐living young adults.The purpose of this study is to determine whether a 12‐week exercise snackingintervention improves physical activity behavior, aerobic fitness, cardiometabolichealth, exercise motivation, affective responses to physical activity, and psychologicalwell‐being compared with a usual behavior control group. Participants will be randomlyassigned to either an exercise snacking intervention or a control condition. Followingcompletion of the intervention, participants will be observed for an additional 12 weeksto evaluate the maintenance of behavioral and physiological changes after structuredsupport is withdrawn.The primary objectives are to determine whether exercise snacking increases objectivelymeasured physical activity and improves aerobic fitness. Secondary objectives are toevaluate changes in body composition, blood pressure, fasting cardiometabolic biomarkers,exercise motivation, affective responses to exercise, and psychological well‐being.Exploratory analyses will examine whether changes in motivation and affective responsesare associated with long‐term maintenance of physical activity during the follow‐upperiod.This study will contribute to the growing evidence regarding practical, scalableapproaches for increasing physical activity among young adults and may help inform futurelifestyle interventions and public health recommendations aimed at promoting long‐termengagement in regular physical activity