National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

This file is the second of two files on physical activities and includes detailed information about specific leisure time activities only.

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

For respondents 12 to 15 years of age, information about specific leisure time activities was obtained during the physical examination, at the Mobile Examination Center (MEC).

For respondents 16 or more years of age, the information was obtained before the physical examination, in the home, using an interviewer- administered computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) system.

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: This is the numeric code for the reported activity (see Appendix 1)

PADLEVEL: This is the level of exertion reported for the activity. Activities reported as involving moderate exertion were coded 1 and vigorous were coded 2.

PADTIMES: This is the 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: This is the average number of minutes the activity was done each time. The data was originally reported in hours or minutes and hours were converted to minutes.

PADMETS: This is the 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.

The PAQIAF questions for respondents 16 or more years of age were asked in the household interview. If this data is analyzed own its own or only with other household interview data, then the interview sample weights should be used. 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 to 15 year olds should use the MEC sample weights as the questions were asked in the MEC.

Suggested metabolic equivalent (MET) scores for the activities listed in this file are included in Appendix 1. They were obtained from the reference below and personal communication with the author.

Please refer to the Analytic Guidelines for further details on the use of sample weights and other analytic issues. The Analytic Guidelines are available on the NHANES website.