Comparing hip-worn and wrist-worn fitness tracker data in primary school children

Physical activity is critical for children’s current and future physical and mental health. The UK Chief Medical Officers recommend that children should take part in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity for an average of an hour each day.

Schools are well placed to increase physical activity in children through tailored programmes and interventions. To assess the impacts of school-based physical activity interventions we must ensure that activity levels in children are measured accurately.

The technology behind fitness trackers (otherwise known as accelerometers) has developed over the years. Wrist-worn trackers are now a popular measurement device, while hip-worn trackers are being used less often.

There is a lot of wrist tracker data for adults but much less for children. Importantly, physical activity estimates in children use hip worn devices. It is, therefore, important for us to understand how the devices compare and how we might be able to interpret data from wrist-worn devices in children.

Project aims

This study aims to compare moderate-to-vigorous physical activity estimates between hip-worn and wrist-worn fitness trackers.

We will be looking at average activity estimates for weekdays and weekends in Year 4 and Year 5 primary school children.

What we hope to achieve

We hope to improve our understanding of physical activity measurement devices.

Our findings will facilitate:

• Interpretation of data from wrist-worn devices
• Comparison with hip-worn devices used widely in research until this point