From Free Play to Farm Chores: Using the Youth Compendium to Characterize Physical Activity Behaviors Among Rural Children

Abstract

The physical activity (PA) behaviors of rural youth are not fully understood and community health practitioners often lack practical PA tools to evaluate their activities. The purpose of this study was to use the Youth Compendium, a publicly available PA assessment tool, to identify activities frequently reported among a sample of rural children and to provide translational implications for PA promotion in community settings. Ninety-seven children (mean age=8.9±1.1; female=58.8%) who participated in the rural NU-HOME obesity prevention randomized controlled trial completed a 7-day PA log and provided accelerometry data (mean moderate-vigorous PA=44.5±18.9 minutes/day). Using the Youth Compendium, multiple research team members independently coded the open-response PA log data to determine specific activity types completed on weekdays and weekends. We established interrater reliability using coder triangulation methods. Activity-specific energy costs and durations were estimated using youth metabolic equivalent of task (METy) and METy-minute values. On weekdays, the most commonly reported activities were free play (75.3%), biking (37.1%), and walking (37.1%); mean METy-minutes=480±693, 92±210, and 72±233, respectively. On weekends, the most commonly reported activities were free play (61.9%), walking (50.5%), and swimming (29.9%); mean METy-minutes=714±1009, 151±280, and 520±1030, respectively. Farm chores were prevalent and were reported on weekdays (9.2%) and weekends (17.5%). Among this rural sample, children reported a diverse range of activities spanning from free play to farm chores. The Youth Compendium is a useful PA assessment tool. However, to support this tool’s utility in rural community settings, compendia expansion work is needed to include activities commonly reported by rural youth.