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A new accelerometric method to assess the daily walking practice

International Journal of Obesity volume 26, pages 111–118 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To describe a method to obtain a profile of the duration and intensity (speed) of walking periods over 24 hours in women under free-living conditions.

DESIGN: A new method based on accelerometry was designed for analyzing walking activity. In order to take into account inter-individual variability of acceleration, an individual calibration process was used. Different experiments were performed to highlight the variability of acceleration vs walking speed relationship, to analyze the speed prediction accuracy of the method, and to test the assessment of walking distance and duration over 24-h.

SUBJECTS: Twenty-eight women were studied (mean±s.d.) age: 39.3±8.9 y; body mass: 79.7±11.1 kg; body height: 162.9±5.4 cm; and body mass index (BMI) 30.0±3.8 kg/m2.

RESULTS: Accelerometer output was significantly correlated with speed during treadmill walking (r=0.95, P<0.01), and short unconstrained walks (r=0.86, P<0.01), although with a large inter-individual variation of the regression parameters. By using individual calibration, it was possible to predict walking speed on a standard urban circuit (predicted vs measured r=0.93, P<0.01, s.e.e.=0.51 km/h). In the free-living experiment, women spent on average 79.9±36.0 (range: 31.7–168.2) min/day in displacement activities, from which discontinuous short walking activities represented about 2/3 and continuous ones 1/3. Total walking distance averaged 2.1±1.2 (range: 0.4–4.7) km/day. It was performed at an average speed of 5.0±0.5 (range: 4.1–6.0) km/h.

CONCLUSION: An accelerometer measuring the anteroposterior acceleration of the body can estimate walking speed together with the pattern, intensity and duration of daily walking activity.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dominique Bécard for her help in the treadmill experiment, Kamiar Aminian for technical advice and Roland Weinsier for reading the manuscript. The study was partially supported by a grant from the Swiss National Science Research Foundation (Grant 3200-055928.98/1). The SCAM device described in this article will not be produced commercially and therefore the authors have no financial interest in the product.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Physiology, University of Lausanne, Switzerland

    Y Schutz, P Terrier & D Durrer

  2. University of Alabama at Birmingham, Alabama, USA

    S Weinsier

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Correspondence to Y Schutz.

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Schutz, Y., Weinsier, S., Terrier, P. et al. A new accelerometric method to assess the daily walking practice. Int J Obes 26, 111–118 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ijo.0801856

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