Measuring Children's Activity in its Social Context(RMI)

描述（由申请人提供）： 儿童肥胖已成为一个主要的公共卫生问题。了解儿童肥胖的关键差距之一是缺乏对儿童在社会环境中身体活动强度的准确评估。虽然在这方面为成人开展了大量沿着工作，但为儿童开展的工作很少。在大规模调查中，社会和行为科学家收集有关儿童参与社会意义类别的信息。但这些措施并没有捕捉到所涉及的体力活动的强度。运动生理学家和肥胖研究人员已经开发了儿童体力活动类型、持续时间和强度的自我报告措施;然而，他们没有收集社会背景的信息。这一拟议项目的具体目标是召集一个科学家网络，从社会和行为科学、运动生理学以及公共卫生和营养等多个角度进行研究，以研究儿童的活动。该网络将侧重于通常不受研究的年龄段的儿童，即3-5岁和6-12岁的儿童，并将考虑不同种族背景的儿童。这些目标涉及研究设计、测量、数据收集技术和分析方法四个领域。我们的具体目标是：1）评估关于身体活动和相关的具有社会意义的活动类别的测量和数据收集的现状，2）评估如何将社会和行为科学方法与身体活动以及确定活动水平和能量消耗的生理方法联系起来，及3）进行先导试验，以探讨如何采用这些技术，并确定建议的方法/仪器在大规模研究中的成本和效益。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Childhood obesity has become a major public health concern. One of the key gaps in understanding childhood obesity is the lack of an accurate assessment of the intensity of children's physical activities in their social context. Although extensive work along these lines has been conducted for adults, little has been conducted for children. In large-scale surveys, social and behavioral scientists collect information on children's participation in socially meaningful categories. But these measures do not capture the intensity of physical activity involved. Exercise physiologists and obesity researchers have developed self-report measures of the type, duration, and intensity of children's physical activity; however, they do not collect information on the social context. The specific aim of this proposed project is to convene a network of scientists conducting research from multiple perspectives, that of social and behavioral science, exercise physiology, and public health and nutrition, to study children's activities. This network would focus upon children of ages not typically studied, those 3-5, as well as those 6-12, and would consider children of diverse ethnic backgrounds. The objectives address the four areas of research design, measurement, data collection techniques, and analytic methods. Our specific aims are: 1) To evaluate the current state of measurement and data collection on physical activity and associated societally meaningful categories of activity, 2) To evaluate how to link the social and behavioral scientific approaches to physical activity and the physiological approaches to determining activity levels and energy expenditures, and 3) To conduct pilot testing to explore how to incorporate such techniques and to determine the cost and effectiveness of recommended methods/equipment for large-scale studies.