Feasibility and validity of accelerometer measurements to assess physical activity in toddlers

BACKGROUND: Accelerometers are considered to be the most promising tool for measuring physical activity (PA) in free-living young children. So far, no studies have examined the feasibility and validity of accelerometer measurements in children under 3 years of age. Therefore, the purpose of the pres...

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Autores principales: Van Cauwenberghe, Eveline, Gubbels, Jessica, De Bourdeaudhuij, Ilse, Cardon, Greet
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3132156/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21703004
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-8-67
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author Van Cauwenberghe, Eveline
Gubbels, Jessica
De Bourdeaudhuij, Ilse
Cardon, Greet
author_facet Van Cauwenberghe, Eveline
Gubbels, Jessica
De Bourdeaudhuij, Ilse
Cardon, Greet
author_sort Van Cauwenberghe, Eveline
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Accelerometers are considered to be the most promising tool for measuring physical activity (PA) in free-living young children. So far, no studies have examined the feasibility and validity of accelerometer measurements in children under 3 years of age. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to examine the feasibility and validity of accelerometer measurements in toddlers (1- to 3-year olds). METHODS: Forty-seven toddlers (25 boys; 20 ± 4 months) wore a GT1M ActiGraph accelerometer for 6 consecutive days and parental perceptions of the acceptability of wearing the monitor were assessed to examine feasibility. To investigate the validity of the ActiGraph and the predictive validity of three ActiGraph cut points, accelerometer measurements of 31 toddlers (17 boys; 20 ± 4 months) during free play at child care were compared to directly observed PA, using the Observational System for Recording Physical Activity in Children-Preschool (OSRAC-P). Validity was assessed using Pearson and Spearman correlations and predictive validity using area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve (ROC-AUC). RESULTS: The feasibility examination indicated that accelerometer measurements of 30 toddlers (63.8%) could be included with a mean registration time of 564 ± 62 min during weekdays and 595 ± 83 min during weekend days. According to the parental reports, 83% perceived wearing the accelerometer as 'not unpleasant and not pleasant' and none as 'unpleasant'. The validity evaluation showed that mean ActiGraph activity counts were significantly and positively associated with mean OSRAC-P activity intensity (r = 0.66; p < 0.001; n = 31). Further, the correlation among the ActiGraph activity counts and the OSRAC-P activity intensity level during each observation interval was significantly positive (ρ = 0.52; p < 0.001; n = 4218). Finally, the three sedentary cut points exhibited poor to fair classification accuracy (ROC-AUC: 0.56 to 0.71) while the three light PA (ROC-AUC: 0.51 to 0.62) and the three moderate-to-vigorous PA cut points (ROC-AUC: 0.53 to 0.57) demonstrated poor classification accuracy with respect to detecting sedentary behavior, light PA and moderate-to-vigorous PA, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The present findings suggest that ActiGraph accelerometer measurements are feasible and valid for quantifying PA in toddlers. However, further research is needed to accurately identify PA intensities in toddlers using accelerometry.
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spelling pubmed-31321562011-07-09 Feasibility and validity of accelerometer measurements to assess physical activity in toddlers Van Cauwenberghe, Eveline Gubbels, Jessica De Bourdeaudhuij, Ilse Cardon, Greet Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act Research BACKGROUND: Accelerometers are considered to be the most promising tool for measuring physical activity (PA) in free-living young children. So far, no studies have examined the feasibility and validity of accelerometer measurements in children under 3 years of age. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to examine the feasibility and validity of accelerometer measurements in toddlers (1- to 3-year olds). METHODS: Forty-seven toddlers (25 boys; 20 ± 4 months) wore a GT1M ActiGraph accelerometer for 6 consecutive days and parental perceptions of the acceptability of wearing the monitor were assessed to examine feasibility. To investigate the validity of the ActiGraph and the predictive validity of three ActiGraph cut points, accelerometer measurements of 31 toddlers (17 boys; 20 ± 4 months) during free play at child care were compared to directly observed PA, using the Observational System for Recording Physical Activity in Children-Preschool (OSRAC-P). Validity was assessed using Pearson and Spearman correlations and predictive validity using area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve (ROC-AUC). RESULTS: The feasibility examination indicated that accelerometer measurements of 30 toddlers (63.8%) could be included with a mean registration time of 564 ± 62 min during weekdays and 595 ± 83 min during weekend days. According to the parental reports, 83% perceived wearing the accelerometer as 'not unpleasant and not pleasant' and none as 'unpleasant'. The validity evaluation showed that mean ActiGraph activity counts were significantly and positively associated with mean OSRAC-P activity intensity (r = 0.66; p < 0.001; n = 31). Further, the correlation among the ActiGraph activity counts and the OSRAC-P activity intensity level during each observation interval was significantly positive (ρ = 0.52; p < 0.001; n = 4218). Finally, the three sedentary cut points exhibited poor to fair classification accuracy (ROC-AUC: 0.56 to 0.71) while the three light PA (ROC-AUC: 0.51 to 0.62) and the three moderate-to-vigorous PA cut points (ROC-AUC: 0.53 to 0.57) demonstrated poor classification accuracy with respect to detecting sedentary behavior, light PA and moderate-to-vigorous PA, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The present findings suggest that ActiGraph accelerometer measurements are feasible and valid for quantifying PA in toddlers. However, further research is needed to accurately identify PA intensities in toddlers using accelerometry. BioMed Central 2011-06-26 /pmc/articles/PMC3132156/ /pubmed/21703004 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-8-67 Text en Copyright ©2011 Van Cauwenberghe et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research
Van Cauwenberghe, Eveline
Gubbels, Jessica
De Bourdeaudhuij, Ilse
Cardon, Greet
Feasibility and validity of accelerometer measurements to assess physical activity in toddlers
title Feasibility and validity of accelerometer measurements to assess physical activity in toddlers
title_full Feasibility and validity of accelerometer measurements to assess physical activity in toddlers
title_fullStr Feasibility and validity of accelerometer measurements to assess physical activity in toddlers
title_full_unstemmed Feasibility and validity of accelerometer measurements to assess physical activity in toddlers
title_short Feasibility and validity of accelerometer measurements to assess physical activity in toddlers
title_sort feasibility and validity of accelerometer measurements to assess physical activity in toddlers
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3132156/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21703004
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-8-67
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