摘要：Stookey AD, Mealey LM, Shaughnessy, M. Physical Activity Assessment in Children. JEPonline 2011;14(5):75-84. In the United States, the prevalence of overweight and obesity in children has increased at alarming rates, which suggests that children are experiencing a chronic positive energy balance, with energy intake exceeding energy expenditure. To better understand the contribution of physical activity to daily energy expenditure, it is critical to implement techniques to accurately assess physical activity in children. Implementation of such techniques would facilitate the establishment of more specific physical activity guidelines for children and increase researchers' ability to monitor the effects of physical activity interventions in youth. This literature review reports the historical evolution of instruments designed to measure energy expenditure in youth and addresses various limitations associated with each assessment tool. A PubMed search was used to locate articles that validated objective activity monitors in children. Only methods validated against criterion methods of indirect calorimetry and doubly labeled water were included in this review. The main outcome was energy expenditure predicted by various activity assessment tools. When relying on the linear relationship of heart rate and oxygen consumption to estimate energy expenditure, errors range from -16.7% to +18.8%. Energy expenditure predicted by accelerometry yields relatively high correlations when compared to criterion methods in a controlled laboratory setting (r = 0.62 to 0.93), but tend to vary with accuracy when analyzing children's free-play activity. Devices that incorporate multiple parameters are promising for improving the accuracy of predicting the energy cost of various activities typical of youth. However, more research is needed to refine algorithms to increase the accuracy and utility of these devices.
