Methodology of physical-activity and energy-expenditure assessment: a review

Abstract

Over the last decades, substantial epidemiological evidence has been accumulated on the protective role of increased physical activity (PA) for the prevention and management of certain chronic diseases. To better address the impact of physical activity on health, valid and reliable instruments for its measurement are essential. Because of its dimensionality, a large number of methods exist for the assessment of various aspects of physical activity. This review provides a summary of available tools for measuring physical activity and total energy expenditure (TEE) and addresses their advantages and limitations in assessing PA in epidemiological surveys. The selection of the appropriate method for a specific survey should be based on criteria such as experimental goals, sample size, budget, cultural and social/environmental factors, physical burden for the subject, and statistical factors such as validity and reliability. The instruments that are very precise in measuring total energy expenditure such as doubly-labeled water method and direct and indirect calorimetry tend to be impractical on a population basis. On the other hand, methods such as self-report techniques are applicable for epidemiological studies, but they lack accuracy in measuring energy expenditure (EE).

Validation of the use of Actigraph GT3X accelerometers to estimate energy expenditure in full time manual wheelchair users with spinal cord injury

“…Nevertheless, questionnaires present greater subjectivity, and the results depend on the accuracy of the subjects' memories. 10 Other methods employed to estimate the PA level based on energy expenditure are indirect calorimetry and heart rate monitors. 10 Due to the high price and the difficulty of employing indirect calorimetry measures in a daily scenario and the low accuracy of heart rate monitoring (during group calibration), neither option is optimal for PA assessment.…”

“…10 Other methods employed to estimate the PA level based on energy expenditure are indirect calorimetry and heart rate monitors. 10 Due to the high price and the difficulty of employing indirect calorimetry measures in a daily scenario and the low accuracy of heart rate monitoring (during group calibration), neither option is optimal for PA assessment. 10 Another technology used to assess energy expenditure is accelerometry, which is inexpensive, accurate and could be employed in daily activity.…”

“…10 Due to the high price and the difficulty of employing indirect calorimetry measures in a daily scenario and the low accuracy of heart rate monitoring (during group calibration), neither option is optimal for PA assessment. 10 Another technology used to assess energy expenditure is accelerometry, which is inexpensive, accurate and could be employed in daily activity. 10 In fact, this technique has been one of the most widely accepted method for assessing PA in recent decades and has been validated in numerous recent studies.…”

“…10 Another technology used to assess energy expenditure is accelerometry, which is inexpensive, accurate and could be employed in daily activity. 10 In fact, this technique has been one of the most widely accepted method for assessing PA in recent decades and has been validated in numerous recent studies. 10,11 Thanks to all these studies about the validation, now there are several papers where the PA in free-living conditions in able-bodied people is evaluated using accelerometers.…”

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

“…However, when applied to groups of individuals, the HRM technique provides an acceptable estimate of TEE and associated patterns of PA (44) . 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.…”