Assessment of physical activity in youth

Abstract

Despite much progress with physical activity assessment, the limitations concerning the accurate measurement of physical activity are often amplified in young people due to the cognitive, physiological, and biomechanical changes that occur during natural growth as well as a more intermittent pattern of habitual physical activity in youth compared with adults. This mini-review describes and compares methods to assess habitual physical activity in youth and discusses main issues regarding the use and interpretation of data collected with these techniques. Self-report instruments and movement sensing are currently the most frequently used methods for the assessment of physical activity in epidemiological research; others include heart rate monitoring and multisensor systems. Habitual energy expenditure can be estimated from these input measures with varying degree of uncertainty. Nonlinear modeling techniques, using accelerometry perhaps in combination with physiological parameters like heart rate or temperature, have the greatest potential for increasing the prediction accuracy of habitual physical activity energy expenditure. Although multisensor systems may be more accurate, this must be balanced against feasibility, a balance that shifts with technological and scientific advances and should be considered at the beginning of every new study.

Measuring physical activity using accelerometry in 13–15-year-old adolescents: the importance of including non-wear activities

“…Furthermore, three valid weekdays and one valid weekend day of monitoring were needed to obtain reliable estimates (18,50,51) .…”

Estudo de validade do questionário "Lista de Atividades Físicas" em crianças

“…The interview may give more control, allowing those children who have cognitive diffi culties responding to the questionnaire to be identifi ed, something which would be diffi cult were the children to complete the questionnaires themselves. 7 Questionnaires about the previous day are those most often used in research with children and are more appropriate for use with this population due to the short time period between carrying out the activity and reporting it. Trying to remember activities carried out in periods such as the previous week, month or year may be accompanied by errors.…”

“…However, they have limitations, such as being dependent on memory and on the interviewers capacity to use them, which can interfere in the accuracy and reliability of the data obtained. 3,7,19 Objective methods, such as accelerometry, are widely used with children. This method, however, does not allow the type of activity to be identifi ed.…”

A frequency questionnaire to estimate free-living physical activity among Tunisian preadolescent and adolescent children

“…Objective measures of PA fitness with multiple motion sensors or HRM have often been used as a criterion measure in field studies validating other subjective PA instruments, particularly selfreport instruments (16) . Some recent questionnaire validation studies have used an accelerometer as a criterion (62)(63)(64) and some others used combined HRM with motion sensors, e.g. pedometers or accelerometers (65,66) ; indeed, it is assumed that combining HR data with motion sensors may provide more valid representation of PA, but several studies have investigated the validity of self-report questionnaires by using the same type of methods as used in the present study (16,36,57,67,68) .…”