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A validation study of assessing physical activity and sedentary behavior in children aged 3 to 5 years
Li Ming Wen1, Hidde P van der Ploeg, James Kite
1Health Promotion Service, Sydney South West Area Health Service, Camperdown, NSW 2050, Australia.
Insights
Parent-completed activity diaries show promise for measuring physical activity in young children (3-5 years). These diaries offer a practical alternative to costly accelerometers for assessing children's physical activity and sedentary behavior.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Health
- Behavioral Science
- Measurement Science
Background:
- Accurate assessment of physical activity and sedentary behavior in young children is crucial but often challenging and expensive.
- Existing methods like accelerometry can be resource-intensive, necessitating exploration of alternative, practical tools.
Purpose of the Study:
- To validate a brief parent-completed survey on activity preferences and a 7-day activity diary against accelerometer data.
- To determine the utility of these parent-reported measures as proxies for objective physical activity assessment in preschoolers.
Main Methods:
- A study involving 34 parent-child dyads (children aged 3-5 years) in Sydney, Australia.
- Parents completed a 9-item activity preference survey and a 7-day activity diary for their child.
- Parent-reported data were compared with objective accelerometer measurements of the child's activity over the same period.
Main Results:
- Parent-completed 7-day activity diaries demonstrated acceptable correlation coefficients when compared to accelerometer data.
- The brief survey on activity preferences showed less robust correlation, suggesting limited utility as a direct proxy measure.
Conclusions:
- Parent-completed 7-day activity diaries are a viable and potentially cost-effective tool for assessing physical activity and sedentary behavior in children aged 3-5 years.
- These diaries can be considered for use in future research and public health initiatives targeting early childhood physical activity.
Abstract:
Assessing young children's physical activity and sedentary behavior can be challenging and costly. This study aimed to assess the validity of a brief survey about activity preferences as a proxy of physical activity and of a 7-day activity diary, both completed by the parents and using accelerometers as a reference measure. Thirty-four parents and their children (aged 3-5 years) who attended childcare centers in Sydney (Australia) were recruited for the study. Parents were asked to complete a 9-item brief survey about activity preferences of their child and a 7-day diary recording the child's physical activity and sedentary behaviors. Both measures were compared with accelerometer data collected from the child over the same period as the diary survey. The findings suggest that parent completed diaries have acceptable correlation coefficients with accelerometer measures and could be considered in future research assessing physical activity and sedentary behavior of children aged 3-5 years.
