What They Say and What They Do: Comparing physical activity across U.S., England, and the Netherlands

What They Say and What They Do: Comparing physical activity across U.S., England, and the Netherlands

Arie Kapteyn, James Banks, Mark Hamer, James P. Smith, Andrew Steptoe, Arthur van Soest, Annemarie Koster, Saw Htay Wah

Journal paper

Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health

2018

Background Physical activity (PA) is important for maintaining health, but there are fundamental unanswered questions on how best it should be measured. Methods We measured PA in the Netherlands (n=748), the USA (n=540) and England (n=254), both by a 7 day wrist-worn accelerometer and by self-reports. The self-reports included a global self-report on PA and a report on the frequency of vigorous, moderate and mild activity. Results The self-reported data showed only minor differences across countries and across groups within countries (such as different age groups or working vs non-working respondents). The accelerometer data, however, showed large differences; the Dutch and English appeared to be much more physically active than Americans h (For instance, among respondents aged 50 years or older 38% of Americans are in the lowest activity quintile of the Dutch distribution). In addition, accelerometer data showed a sharp decline of PA with age, while no such pattern was observed in self-reports. The differences between objective measures and self-reports occurred for both types of self-reports. Conclusion It is clear that self-reports and objective measures tell vastly different stories, suggesting that across countries people use different response scales when answering questions about how physically active they are.