Background/Aims: One aim of PEDALS (Physical activity, Exercise, Diet And Lifestyle Study) is to determine whether sleep timing is associated with diet and activity in children, independent of total sleep duration. Traditionally accelerometers have been worn at the wrist to measure sleep and the waist to measure physical activity. However, we are interested in measuring both behaviours concurrently and although wrist-worn devices show higher compliance in adults, this has not been shown in school-aged children.
Methods: PEDALS is a cross-sectional study of 400 children (age: 9-11 y) from Dunedin primary schools. Participants were asked to complete lifestyle questionnaires during one school day, and to wear an accelerometer (Actigraph GTX3+) on their non-dominant wrist for eight consecutive days to assess sleep and activity patterns. This sub-study aims to assess compliance to a 24-hour wear protocol using a wrist worn-device in school-aged children.
Results: Data collection for PEDALS is ongoing. By July 2015, data was available from 148 participants from seven schools. Preliminary data analysis showed that all participants in the study chose to wear an accelerometer, with 92% of participants providing data for all eight days, and 97% providing data for at least five days.
Conclusions: Initial findings show that uptake of accelerometry measures in this age group is high. This study will be one of the first to determine whether sleep timing influences diet and activity in children, independent of total sleep duration.
Funding source(s): The National Heart Foundation and The University of Otago.