Rowlands A V, Eston R G, Ingledew D K
School of Sport, Health and Physical Education Sciences, University of Wales, Bangor, Gwynedd.
Sports Med. 1997 Oct;24(4):258-72. doi: 10.2165/00007256-199724040-00004.
Understanding the progression of physical activity behaviour from childhood to adulthood requires a valid, reliable and practical method of assessing activity levels which is appropriate for use in large groups. The measurement of physical activity in large scale research projects requires a method which is low in cost, agreeable to the study volunteer and accurate. Self-report can be used to determine adult activity patterns, but children lack the cognitive ability to recall details about their activity patterns. Heart rate telemetry has been used to estimate daily activity in children as a sole criterion and to validate commercial accelerometers. However, heart rate is an indirect estimate of physical activity which makes assumptions based on the linear relationship between heart rate and oxygen uptake. It is sensitive to emotional stress and body position, and takes longer to reach resting levels after physical exertion compared with oxygen uptake. It also lags behind movement, particularly as children's physical activity is spasmodic or intermittent in nature. One alternative is the pedometer. Many early studies reported that the pedometer is inaccurate and unreliable in measuring distance or counting steps. While reasonably accurate at mid range speeds, the accuracy of the pedometer decreases in very slow walking or very fast walking or running. However, more recent studies have examined the efficacy of using pedometers to assess daily or weekly activity patterns as a whole, and these have produced more promising results. In this regard, the pedometer has a number of advantages. It is very cheap, objective and does not interfere with daily activities and is therefore appropriate for use in population studies. Commercial accelerometers with a time-sampling mechanism offer further potential and could be used to provide a picture of the pattern of children's activity. As it has been observed that prolonged activity periods are not typically associated with childhood behaviour patterns, the use of a threshold value for 'aerobic' training stimulus is not appropriate as a cut-off value for physical activity. Instead, there is evidence to suggest that the total activity data measured by pedometers over limited periods of time may be more appropriate to assess how active children are.
了解身体活动行为从童年到成年的发展过程，需要一种有效、可靠且实用的活动水平评估方法，该方法适用于大规模群体。在大规模研究项目中测量身体活动，需要一种成本低、受研究志愿者认可且准确的方法。自我报告可用于确定成人的活动模式，但儿童缺乏回忆其活动模式细节的认知能力。心率遥测已被用作估计儿童日常活动的唯一标准，并用于验证商业加速度计。然而，心率是身体活动的间接估计值，它基于心率与摄氧量之间的线性关系进行假设。它对情绪压力和身体姿势敏感，与摄氧量相比，体力消耗后达到静息水平所需的时间更长。它也滞后于运动，特别是因为儿童的身体活动本质上是痉挛性或间歇性的。一种替代方法是计步器。许多早期研究报告称，计步器在测量距离或计算步数方面不准确且不可靠。虽然在中等速度下相当准确，但计步器在非常慢的行走或非常快的行走或跑步时准确性会降低。然而，最近的研究考察了使用计步器评估整体日常或每周活动模式的效果，这些研究产生了更有希望的结果。在这方面，计步器有许多优点。它非常便宜、客观，且不干扰日常活动，因此适用于人群研究。具有时间采样机制的商业加速度计具有更大的潜力，可用于描绘儿童活动模式。由于观察到长时间的活动期通常与儿童行为模式无关，因此将“有氧”训练刺激的阈值用作身体活动的截止值并不合适。相反，有证据表明，在有限时间段内通过计步器测量的总活动数据可能更适合评估儿童的活动程度。
