Momentary Assessment of Adults’ Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior: Feasibility and Validity

Parental stress is an understudied factor that may compromise parenting practices related to children's dietary intake, physical activity, and obesity. However, studies examining these associations have been subject to methodological limitations, including cross-sectional designs, retrospective measures, a lack of stress biomarkers, and the tendency to overlook momentary etiologic processes occurring within each day. This paper describes the recruitment, data collection, and data analytic protocols for the MATCH (Mothers And Their Children's Health) study, a longitudinal investigation using novel real-time data capture strategies to examine within-day associations of maternal stress with children's physical activity and dietary intake, and how these effects contribute to children's obesity risk. In the MATCH study, 200 mothers and their 8 to 12 year-old children are participating in 6 semi-annual assessment waves across 3 years. At each wave, measures for mother-child dyads include: (a) real-time Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) of self-reported daily psychosocial stressors (e.g., work at a job, family demands), feeling stressed, perceived stress, parenting practices, dietary intake, and physical activity with time and location stamps; (b) diurnal salivary cortisol patterns, accelerometer-monitored physical activity, and 24-hour dietary recalls; (c) retrospective questionnaires of sociodemographic, cultural, family, and neighborhood covariates; and (d) height, weight, and waist circumference. Putative within-day and longitudinal effects of maternal stress on children's dietary intake, physical activity, and body composition will be tested through multilevel modeling and latent growth curve models, respectively. The results will inform interventions that help mothers reduce the negative effects of stress on weight-related parenting practices and children's obesity risk.

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“…Soliciting 7 or more EMA entries per day is acceptable for EMA studies with children and adults. 29-32 …”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating within-day and longitudinal effects of maternal stress on children's physical activity, dietary intake, and body composition: Protocol for the MATCH study

Dunton

Liao

Dzubur

et al. 2015

Contemporary Clinical Trials

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“…Most accelerometers estimate caloric expenditure, duration and intensity of physical activity, as well as sleep/wake patterns. The reliability and validity of these devices in estimating energy expenditure depends on several factors, such as the type of accelerometer, the location of the accelerometer on the body, the amount of time per day the device is worn, the type of activity (ambulatory versus isometric exercise), and the particular equation used to convert acceleration counts to energy expenditure (Fridlund Dunton et al 2012; Rothney et al 2008; see Plasqui et al 2013 for a review).…”

Section: Technology-based Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Frontier: Integrating Behavioral and Digital Technology to Promote Health Behavior

2014

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Modifiable behavioral risk factors such as cigarette smoking, physical inactivity, and obesity contribute to over 40 % of premature deaths in the USA. Advances in digital and information technology are creating unprecedented opportunities for behavior analysts to assess and modify these risk factors. Technological advances include mobile devices, wearable sensors, biomarker detectors, and real-time access to therapeutic support via information technology. Integrating these advances with behavioral technology in the form of conceptually systematic principles and procedures could usher in a new generation of effective and scalable behavioral interventions targeting health behavior. In this selective review of the literature, we discuss how technological tools can assess and modify a range of antecedents and consequences of healthy and unhealthy behavior. We also describe practical, methodological, and conceptual advantages for behavior analysts that stem from the use of technology to assess and treat health behavior.

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“…Thus, it is possible that this study underestimated engagement in physical activity at the end of the day at the prompt occurring between 8:00 and 10:00 pm. Unfortunately, missing data is a common characteristic of ILD [28] (for more discussion of missing EMA data in Project MOBILE, see [29]). Additionally, established guidelines have not been developed regarding the amount of wear-time needed to consider a within-day, momentary period valid.…”

Section: Study Limitations and Future Methodological Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Momentary assessment of physical activity intention-behavior coupling in adults

Maher

Rhodes

Dzubur

et al. 2017

Behav. Med. Pract. Policy Res.

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Research attempting to elucidate physical activity (PA) intention-behavior relations has focused on differences in long-term behavior forecasting between people. However, regular PA requires a repeated performance on a daily or within-daily basis. An empirical case study application is presented using intensive longitudinal data from a study of PA in adults to (a) describe the extent to which shortterm intention-behavior coupling occurs and (b) explore time-varying predictors of intention formation and shortterm intention-behavior coupling. Adults (n = 116) participated in three 4-day waves of ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Each day, participants received EMA questionnaires assessing short-term PA intentions and wore accelerometers to assess whether they engaged in ≥10 min of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) in the 3-hour period after each EMA prompt. Concurrent affective states and contexts were also assessed through EMA. Participants reported having short-term intentions to engage in PA in 41% of EMA prompts. However, participants only engaged in ≥10 min of MVPA following 16% of the prompts that short-term PA intentions were reported indicating an intention-behavior gap of 84%. Odds of intentions followed by PA were greater on occasions when individuals reported higher levels of positive affect than was typical for them. This study is the first to take an EMA approach to describe short-term intentionbehavior coupling in adults. Results suggest that adults have difficulty translating intentions into behavior at the momentary level, more so than over longer timescales, and that positive affect may be a key to successfully translating intentions into behavior. Keywords Intention-behavior gap, Exercise, Planned behavior, MotivationIntentions to engage in physical activity (PA) are posited as a proximal determinant of behavior in many popular theories of motivation [1,2]. Yet, the predictive power of intentions to explain PA behavior is often limited in empirical studies [3,4]. Previous research has almost exclusively focused on identifying time-invariant predictors of why some people have stronger intentions than others (i.e., intention formation) or are better able to follow-though with their intentions than others (intention-behavioral coupling) [5,6]. Studies in this area often focus on long-term intentions such as intentions to engage in regular PA over time spans up to several months. As a result, it is unclear what time-varying factors predict intentions to be active and intention-behavior coupling over shorter time frames such as minutes and hours, which may be important for understanding why individuals fail to engage in PA that was intended just a few hours earlier. This article describes methods for using intensive longitudinal data (IDL) collected through ecological momentary assessment (EMA) as well as accelerometery to investigate short-term intentions to be active and intention-behavior coupling in adults.Even though individuals may form intentions to be active, evidence ...

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Momentary Assessment of Adults’ Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior: Feasibility and Validity

Cited by 82 publications

References 29 publications

Investigating within-day and longitudinal effects of maternal stress on children's physical activity, dietary intake, and body composition: Protocol for the MATCH study

Investigating within-day and longitudinal effects of maternal stress on children's physical activity, dietary intake, and body composition: Protocol for the MATCH study

A New Frontier: Integrating Behavioral and Digital Technology to Promote Health Behavior

Momentary assessment of physical activity intention-behavior coupling in adults

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