Dietary Assessment and Physical Activity Measurement Methods



Dietary Assessment and Physical Activity Measurement Methods

Introduction

Preventing obesity among young people, especially children is one of the most challenging public health issues in United Kingdom. To control and prevent obesity in children, government has designed NCMP (The National Child Measurement Program) to increase professional and public understanding of the weight issues in children. NCMP is a useful and valuable vehicle for engaging with families and children about weight issues and healthy lifestyles. Evidence suggests that multi-component intervention methods, that addresses physical activity and diet together, for preventing obesity have reported better results than intervention methods that are mono-component, i.e. focusing on either diet or physical activity in obese or overweight person. Since these dietary assessments and physical activity measurement are two different areas, different methods that are independent from each other are designed to effectively intervene and address weight issues in children. Therefore, practitioners are encouraged to use the intervention methods in combination which have been recommended in this research paper to achieve their desirable results. In this research paper, we have identified some of the best evidence based methods that has been employed all over the world, especially in UK and US by medical practitioners for preventing and addressing obesity and weight issues in children. All the Dietary Assessment and Physical Activity Measurement Methods are discussed in literature review (Dugdill, & Stratton, 2007).

Literature Review

The Physical Activity Questionnaire for Adolescents/Older Children (PAQ-A/PAQ-C)

Description: The PAQ-A/PAQ-C is a seven day, nine item self-report questionnaire that is designed and widely used for monitoring and surveillance purposes in children.

Target group: 8-20 years old.

Objective: This method is employed by medical practitioners to measure habitual vigorous to moderate physical activity levels during the day that provides a good estimate of total physical activity. This allows practitioners to learn whether children with weight issues are undertaking required physical activities during their school years or not (Roberts, 2010).

Reliability/Validity: This method has consistently reported valid results against a range of direct methods such as doubly labeled water. The PAQ-A/PAQ-C has demonstrated its ability in accurately estimating energy expenditure in children. Reliability of this method is considered to be good by practitioners (Biddle et al., 2011).

Feasibility: 20 minutes is estimated completion time. Easy to administer, code and complete. This method is a little burden to both the respondent and the deliverer. Analysis involves calculation of an MCS (Mean Composite Score) which ...