Energy Cost in Children Assessed by Multisensor Activity Monitors

ARVIDSSON, D., F, SLINDE., S. LARSSON, and L. HULTHEN. Energy Cost in Children Assessed by Multisensor Activity Monitors. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., Vol. 41, No. 3, pp. 603 611, 2009. Purpose: The SenseWear (R) Pro, Annband (SWA; BodyMedia, Inc., Pittsburg, PA), the Intelligent Device for Energy Expenditure and Activity (JIJLEA Minisun LLC, Fresno, CA), and the ActiReg (AR; PreMed AS, Oslo, Nonvay) were compared with indirect calorimetry to determine tire ability of these devices to assess energy cost in children during resting and different physical activities. Methods: Fourteen children, 11-13 yr old, wore the SWA, the IDEEA, and the AR during resting, sitting, stationary bicycling jumping on H trampoline, playing basketball, stair walking, and walking/running along a 50-m track. The Oxycon Mobile portable metabolic system (VIASYS Healthcare, Conshohocken, PA) was used as the criterion along a 50 method for energy cost. Results: For resting and sitting, the three activity monitors showed comparable results, but none of them accurately assessed energy cost for stationary bicycling, Jumping on a trampoline, or playing basketball. The IDEEA was the only IDEEA showed a close estimate of energy cost across activity monitor that accurately assessed energy cost for stair walking. Also, the IDE the walking and the running intensities, whereas the SWA accurately assessed energy cost across slow to normal walking but showed increased underestimation of energy cost with increasing speed. The AR overestimated energy cost during walking aid during slow running but did not respond to increasing running speed. Conclusions: To be able to capture children's physical activity, all three activity monitors need to be further developed. Over-all, the IDEEA showed tire highest ability to assess energy cost in this study, but SWA may be more feasible for use in children under free-living conditions.