Awareness of wearing an accelerometer does not affect physical activity in youth

Jérémy Vanhelst, Laurent Béghin, Elodie Drumez, Stéphanie Coopman, Frédéric Gottrand

This study aimed to investigate whether awareness of being monitored by an accelerometer has an effect on physical activity in young people. Eighty healthy participants aged 10-18 years were randomized between blinded and nonblinded groups. The blinded participants were informed that we were testing the reliability of a new device for body posture assessment and these participants did not receive any information about physical activity. In contrast, the nonblinded participants were informed that the device was an accelerometer that assessed physical activity levels and patterns. The participants were instructed to wear the accelerometer for 4 consecutive days (2 school days and 2 school-free days). Missing data led to the exclusion of 2 participants assigned to the blinded group. When data from the blinded group were compared with these from the nonblinded group, no differences were found in the duration of any of the following items: (i) wearing the accelerometer, (ii) total physical activity, (iii) sedentary activity, and (iv) moderate-to-vigorous activity. Our study shows that the awareness of wearing an accelerometer has no influence on physical activity patterns in young people. This study improves the understanding of physical activity assessment and underlines the objectivity of this method. NCT02844101 (retrospectively registered at July 13th 2016).