Comparing the Actical and ActiGraph Approach to Measuring Young Children’s Physical Activity Levels and Sedentary Time

Young children's activity and sedentary time were simultaneously measured via the Actical method (i.e., Actical accelerometer and specific cut-points) and the ActiGraph method (i.e., ActiGraph accelerometer and specific cut-points) at both 15-s and 60-s epochs to explore possible differences between these 2 measurement approaches. For 7 consecutive days, participants (n = 23) wore both the Actical and ActiGraph side-by-side on an elastic neoprene belt. Device-specific cut-points were applied. Paired sample t tests were conducted to determine the differences in participants' daily average activity levels and sedentary time (min/h) measured by the 2 devices at 15-s and 60-s time sampling intervals. Bland-Altman plots were used to examine agreement between Actical and ActiGraph accelerometers. Regardless of epoch length, Actical accelerometers reported significantly higher rates of sedentary time (15 s: 42.7 min/h vs 33.5 min/h; 60 s: 39.4 min/h vs 27.1 min/h). ActiGraph accelerometers captured significantly higher rates of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (15 s: 9.2 min/h vs 2.6 min/h; 60 s: 8.0 min/h vs 1.27 min/h) and total physical activity (15 s: 31.7 min/h vs 22.3 min/h; 60 s: = 39.4 min/h vs 25.2 min/h) in comparison with Actical accelerometers. These results highlight the present accelerometry-related issues with interpretation of datasets derived from different monitors.