Jared Tucker, lecturer of health, nutrition and exercise science, will have an article, titled "Estimating Minutes of Physical Activity from PDPAR: Validation of a Prediction Equation,” published in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health. Other authors include J. Welk, Sarah Nusser, Nicholas K. Beyler and David A. Dzewaltowski

The Previous Day Physical Activity Recall (PDPAR) is a commonly used self-report tool used to capture levels of physical activity in youth. It requires users to record the previous day’s activities in half-hour increments and assigns a level of physical intensity to each half-hour block. Tucker says because most children and adolescents perform physical activity in sporadic, short bursts, rather than half-hour increments, the half-hour blocks recorded by the Previous Day Physical Activity Recall cannot be interpreted as half-hour bouts of physical activity.

The current study measured physical activity during a three-day period in 121 seventh graders using the Previous Day Physical Activity Recall and using accelerometers, which are an objective measure of physical activity similar to a pedometer, except that they capture the length of the activity and its intensity instead of just total activity.

By comparing the physical activity from the Previous Day Physical Activity Recall to the accelerometers in three-fourths of the sample, a regression equation was created in order to predict the number of minutes of physical activity that one Previous Day Physical Activity Recall block of activity represented.

"Results showed that boys obtain approximately nine minutes of activity per Previous Day Physical Activity Recall bout, while girls obtain approximately five minutes per reported bout," Tucker aid. "In the remaining sample the predicted activity from the equation was compared to actual accelerometer activity, and showed good agreement. Thus, the equation provides a valid and useful metric to aid in the interpretation of Previous Day Physical Activity Recall results."