Child Physical Activity
Two methods of collecting physical activity and inactivity data from respondent children were used, beginning in 1997. The first is based on questionnaires which collect reports of usual time spent in activities common in each of four settings. Activity questionnaires were designed by Popkin and Barbara Ainsworth. Ainsworth was also involved in the design and evaluation of the activity questions for the U.S. Health Interview Surveys (HIS), the MONICA Optional Study of Physical Activity (MOSPA), and more recently the new International Physical Activity questionnaire for WHO. We expanded upon the U.S. HIS questions to include activity and inactivity, including TV viewing and other sedentary activities such as using computers, playing board games, and reading. Activities in and out of school, as well as culture-specific activity at home were included.
The second method involves measurement of motion in a 24-hour period using the Caltrac actometer. A subset of Chinese children provided these data. The Caltrac is a low-cost device that looks like a beeper and is attached to the waist. It registers motion in two dimensions, and gives an estimate of total energy expenditure. The Caltrac was selected because it provides reasonably reliable and valid estimates of total activity, is cost effective, is feasible for use in a variety of field settings, is non-invasive and is well-accepted by children. Questions on sleeping time and the nature of that day for the child are also asked in conjunction with the Caltrac data. However, this was discontinued in 2004.
Read more about this topic: China Health And Nutrition Survey
Famous quotes containing the words child, physical and/or activity:
“Much of what contrives to create critical moments in parenting stems from a fundamental misunderstanding as to what the child is capable of at any given age. If a parent misjudges a child’s limitations as well as his own abilities, the potential exists for unreasonable expectations, frustration, disappointment and an unrealistic belief that what the child really needs is to be punished.”
—Lawrence Balter (20th century)
“The price we pay for the complexity of life is too high. When you think of all the effort you have to put in—telephonic, technological and relational—to alter even the slightest bit of behaviour in this strange world we call social life, you are left pining for the straightforwardness of primitive peoples and their physical work.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“Life is a series of diminishments. Each cessation of an activity either from choice or some other variety of infirmity is a death, a putting to final rest. Each loss, of friend or precious enemy, can be equated with the closing off of a room containing blocks of nerves ... and soon after the closing off the nerves atrophy and that part of oneself, in essence, drops away. The self is lightened, is held on earth by a gram less of mass and will.”
—Coleman Dowell (1925–1985)