RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELF-REPORT AND PARENTAL PROXY REPORT OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IN ADOLESCENTS

1155 The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between a self-report and proxy report of physical activity (PA) in adolescent children in grades 7-12. The subjects were students enrolled in the public school system in Amherst, MA. On separate occasions not more than one month apart, a parent and child filled out similar questionnaires pertaining to the child's physical activity. Spearman correlations between the responses from each questionnaire were calculated to examine the association between child and parent estimates of PA. A total of 531 children with a mean age of 14 ± 1.6 had complete information on both questionnaires. The sample was 45.4% male, 77.02% white, and the mother was the proxy for 76.65% of the children. The table presents the Spearman correlations between responses given by the child and the child's parent.TableParental proxy reports of physical activity are significantly associated with the child's estimate of this activity; r2 = 8 - 49%. This association increased as intensity increased.