National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

This Physical Activity Individual Activities File (PAQIAF_B) is the second of two files on physical activities and includes detailed information about specific moderate and vigorous leisure-time activities only. (See also general Physical Activity file PAQ_B).

All survey participants 12 or more years of age were eligible.

For respondents 12–15 years of age, information about specific leisure-time activities was obtained in the Mobile Examination Center (MEC) as part of a larger questionnaire on physical activity. For respondents 16 or more years of age, the information was obtained in the household interview.

In-person

For each reported leisure-time activity, one record was created in the individual activities file. If a respondent reported no leisure-time activities, there are no records in the file for that respondent. Due to the recoding of “other” leisure-time activities, it is possible for a respondent to have two records for the same activity with the same level of exertion. For example, a respondent may have reported vigorous bicycling and vigorous spinning, which was recoded as bicycling.

PADACTIV: Numeric code for the reported activity (see Appendix 1).

PADLEVEL: Level of exertion reported for the activity (PADACTIV). Activities reported as involving moderate exertion were coded 1; activities reported as involving vigorous exertion were coded 2.

PADTIMES: Number of times the activity was done over the past 30 days. Originally reported as number of times per day, per week, or per month and converted to number of times over the past 30 days.

PADDURAT: Average number of minutes the activity was done each time. The data was originally reported in hours or minutes; hours were converted to minutes.

PADMETS: Metabolic equivalent (MET) score for the activity (see Appendix 1). They were obtained from the reference below and personal communication with the author.
Activities for which the reported duration (PADDURAT) was less than 10 minutes were excluded.

PADTIMES and PADDURAT were set to missing for activities in which the total time per day was 12 hours or more. For example, if bowling was reported an average of 3 times a day over the past 30 days for an average of 4 hours each time, PADTIMES and PADDURAT were set to missing for this activity.

Because the PAQIAF questions for respondents 16 or more years of age were asked in the household interview, the interview sample weights may be used in their analysis. However, if the data is joined with data from the MEC, the MEC sample weights should be used. Analysis of the PAQIAF questions for 12–15 year olds should use the MEC sample weights, as the questions were asked in the MEC.