A Research Approach to Self-Report and Objective Measurements of Physical Activity in Eating Disorders

Abstract

Physical activity (PA) is complex and difficult to characterize within eating disorder (ED) populations, due to the presence of both adaptive and maladaptive PA. To better understand PA in ED populations, it’s important to consider both the psychological and objective factors of PA in EDs. Within ED research, PA has been most commonly measured using self-report, ecological momentary assessment, and clinician assessment of PA. While these forms of measurement capture many psychological factors of PA like exercise motivation, these measures are subjective methods prone to biases and are reliant on an individual’s recall. In addition to self-report measurement, emerging research has begun to utilize objective measurement tools, such as wearable sensors, to assess the objective components of PA in EDs. Sensor technologies are automatic and continuous methods of measuring PA that do not rely on subjective reporting and instead offer real-time data collection. The following chapter reviews the current measurement tools available to assess both the psychological and objective components of PA in ED populations and proposes future use of a multimodal method of investigating PA in ED populations.