Physical Activity during Childhood - Methods of Assessment

Most people will support the opinion that children exercise less in our modern chnological world compared to previous times. Unfortunately, statements like that are mainly based upon speculation rather than valid and reliable sets of data on the actual activity level of children which are only rarely available if they exist at all. This leads to partly contradictory and possibly an underrated valuation of physical activity (PA) in the prevention of overweight and obesity in childhood and adolescence. Three categories of measuring methods to evaluate PA can be distinguished. Methods of the first category serve to measure PA directly (direct observation) or the energy consumption associated with the PA (indirect calorimetry). Methods of the second category comprise heart rate measurement, accelerometry and pedometry. Self-report questionnaires, structured interviews, proxy-reports and diaries belong to category three. There is a high demand for research in the field of methods used to quanti PA in particular in children and adolescents because currently independent of advantages and disadvantages of individual methods there is no optimal instrument available to measure PA in these age groups.