Question pretext
I am going to ask you about the time you spent being physically active in the last 7 days. Please answer each question even if you do not consider yourself to be an active person. Think about the activities you do at work, as part of your house and yard work, to get from place to place, and in your spare time for recreation, exercise or sport.
Literal question
Now, think about all the vigorous activities which take hard physical effort that you did in the last 7 days. Vigorous activities make you breathe much harder than normal and may include heavy lifting, digging, aerobics, or fast bicycling.
Think about only those physical activities that you did for at least 10 minutes at a time.
During the last 7 days, on how many days did you do vigorous physical activities?
Interviewer instructions
The respondent should think of activities undertaken in the past 7 days – that is the 7 days preceding the interview. Culturally relevant examples of vigorous activity undertaken in the different domains (e.g., heavy yard work, sports, work) should be substituted to illustrate the range of activities that can be considered. Examples should represent different kinds of physical activities considered most typical for a country and that represents an intensity of at least greater than 6 METs [see Appendix A4.4 and Compendium of physical activities: an update of activity codes and MET intensities. Ainsworth AE. et al., Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 2000; 32(9 Suppl):S498-S504. Each country will update Appendix D/4 adding the examples of vigorous physical activities specific for the country.
Respondents may be unclear as to what is meant by “vigorous”. Repeat the following definition if required “vigorous activities take hard physical effort, make you breathe much harder than normal, examples include [use culturally relevant examples and show card].
Response range is 0-7 days per week. If the answer is “Zero”, record “0” and Go to Q4033.