Reviewer ’s report  
 
Title: How active are women who play bingo: A cross -sectional study from the Well!Bingo  
project  
 
Version: 0 Date: 27 Jan 2017  
 
Reviewer: Andrea Chomistek  
 
Reviewer's report:  
 
The purpose of this cross -sectional study was to report on the sociodemographic characteristics, 
physical activity level, and sedentary time among women in a bingo club in Scotland with the 
goal of potentially designing a health promotion  intervention in this group.  
 
 
Although the overarching goal of the project is interesting and innovative, the topic of this 
paper —reporting on the baseline characteristics —is not very exciting. However, this paper does 
provide some supporting evidence that  this may be a good target population for a physical 
activity intervention.  
 
 
Please find specific comments and suggestions below:  
 
 
Background, Lines 54 - 55: "Mental health" is not a chronic condition. Please revise.  
 
 
Background, Line 68: 14% difference in  physical activity levels is a little unclear. Is this 
supposed to be mean level of physical activity?  Or do you mean 14% difference in the 
proportion meeting the physical activity guidelines?  
 
 
Background, Lines 74 - 75: How popular are bingo clubs in Sco tland? Do a large proportion of 
older women attend bingo clubs?  
 
 
Methods, Line 103: "Past" should be changed to "passed"  
 
 
Methods, Lines 143 - 144: What was the reason for asking them to record time spent at bingo in 
their wear -time diaries?   
 
 
Results, Lines 214 - 215: Did you assess employment status?  
 
Results, Lines 222 - 223: The sentence that starts with "Five women…." does not make sense.  
Please revise.  
 
 
Discussion, Lines 246 - 247: I think a bingo club could be an interesting place to del iver a PA 
intervention. However, did you in any way assess the women's level of interest in participating in 
this type of intervention? They may purposely be choosing bingo because they are not interested 
in more active social activities.  
 
 
Discussion, Line s 261 - 263: This probably has very little to do with the ability to find time to 
take part in the study given that both active and less active women were at the bingo hall. This is 
much more likely to do the fact that often healthier people are the ones w ho choose to participate 
in studies, particularly if they know they are health -related. These sentences should be edited to 
reflect this.  
 
 
This would very likely be an issue for an intervention as well, where the more active women 
would be more willing to participate.  
 
 
Discussion, Lines 265 - 267: Perhaps, but why?  Should give some rationale for this assertion.  
 
 
Table 1: P values cannot be 0. Please edit the p -value for marital status to p < 0.001 (or whatever 
the journal guidelines are for very low p -values). 
 
 
Table 2: Instead of reporting MET mins/week in each category, I think it would be better to 
simply report minutes/week or hrs/week for interpretability, particularly given that you simply 
assigned the same MET value to all vigorous activities and all  moderate activities. This would 
also make it easier to compare time spent in PA to time spent sedentary.  
 
 
Also, please edit the P -value for weekday sitting so it is not equal to 0.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Are the methods appropriate and well described?  
If not, please specify what is required in your comments to the authors.  
 
Yes 
 
Does the work include the necessary controls?  
If not, please specify which controls are required in your comments t o the authors.  
 
Yes 
 
Are the conclusions drawn adequately supported by the data shown?  
If not, please explain in your comments to the authors.  
 
Yes 
 
Are you able to assess any statistics in the manuscript or would you recommend an  
additional statistical review ? 
If an additional statistical review is recommended, please specify what aspects require further  
assessment in your comments to the editors.  
 
I am able to assess the statistics  
 
Quality of written English  
Please indicate the quality of language in the manus cript:  
 
Acceptable  
 
Declaration of competing interests  
Please complete a declaration of competing interests, considering the following questions:  
 
1. Have you in the past five years received reimbursements, fees, fu nding, or salary from an  
organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially from the publication of this  
manuscript, either now or in the future?  
 
2. Do you hold any stocks or shares in an organisation that may in any way gain or lose  
financially from the publication of this manuscript, either now or in the future?  
 
3. Do you hold or are you currently applying for any patents relating to the content of the  
manuscript?  
 
4. Have you received reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an organization that 
holds  or has applied for patents relating to the content of the manuscript?  
 
5. Do you have any other financial competing interests?  
 
6. Do you have any non -financial competing interests in relation to this paper?  
If you can answer no to al l of the above, write 'I declare that I have no competing interests' 
below.  If your reply is yes to any, please give details below.  
 
I declare that I have no competing interests  
  
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