Information on measurements for children
Measurements
We will be visiting you 3 times over the course of the study and each time we will ask if you would like to participate in the same set of measurements.
In the classroom:
Questionnaire – You will be asked to complete a questionnaire which asks about things like what food you ate the day before and how much time you spend watching TV and playing computer games. The questionnaire is quite long, but you don’t have to worry about reading it all yourself – one of our team will read it out loud to the class and you will all work through the questions at the same time. There are no right or wrong answers, and it is not a test. We won’t be showing your teacher or your parents the answers you put, we will be keeping them private and will use them for our research.
In a private room:
Weight – We will ask you whether or not you mind being weighed. If you don’t want to be weighed that is fine. If you do want to, we will ask you to take off your shoes and any thick jumpers and stand on the scales. We will not make any comment on your weight, and we will not tell your teacher, your friends or your parents how much you weigh.
Height – We will ask you whether you mind having your height measured. If you don’t want to have your height measured that is fine. If you do, we will ask you to keep your shoes off, and stand against the measure. You will need to stand up nice and straight, but you must keep your feet flat on the floor. If you have your hair up, we may ask you to take it down, if you don’t want to you don’t have to. We will not tell your teacher, parent or friends how tall you are, we will just write it down.
Waist – We will ask you whether you mind having your waist measured. Again, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. You do not need to take your top off, but if you are wearing a thick jumper or a cardigan we will ask you to take it off and leave you t-shirt/vest on if you are wearing one. We use a tape measure to measure your waist, and we do it twice to make sure we get it right. We will help you find your hip and your rib cage, and ask you to point to them so we can see where we need to measure. As with all the other measurements, we will not tell anyone your waist measurement.
Activity belts – We will give you the opportunity to wear an activity belt, called an accelerometer for 6 days. If you don’t want to wear one, you do not have to take one. The belt is worn outside your clothes around your waist, with the red box on your right hip.
Find out more about the Accelerometers.
Remember, you don’t have to do any of the measurements that you don’t want to do. Any measures that you do will be kept private; only the researchers will see the results.