Quantification of Physical Activity in Children and Adolescents: Issues, Challenges and Recommendations

Abstract

Physical activity has been understood to be associated with reduction in all-cause mortality obesity, diabetes, hypertension, CVD, certain cancers, osteoporosis and depression. Quantification of physical as energy expenditure is important since childhood for the purpose of preventing future chromic non-communicable diseases. Accurate and reliable equipment is important and needed to assess the physical activity among the youths. Furthermore, it is important to note that a high quality physical activity in children and adolescent can contribute to achieving helath goals. Meanwhile, many measurement techniques have been questioned hased on the issues and challenges surrounding them when used to measure the amount of physical activity in children and adolescents, most especially those aged below 10 years. Therefore, issues and challenges concerning validation of physical activity measurements in children need to be resolved for the best acurateand reliable measures to be obtained. This paper discusses available methods in the quantification of physical activity, issues and challenges concerning physical activity measurement, and its influences on physical activity assessment in children and adolescents. Techiques that may be used to validate physical activity measurements in children and adolescents are analysed and recommendations proffered.