MORGAN, D. W., W. TSEH, J. L. CAPUTO, D. J. KEEFER, I. S. CRAIG, K. B. GRIFFITH, M.-B. AKINS, G. E. GRIFFITH, G. S. KRAHENBUHL, and P. E. MARTIN. Prediction of the aerobic demand of walking in children. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., Vol. 34, No. 12, pp. 2097-2102, 2002.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop a generalized equation to predict V̇O2 during level treadmill walking in young boys and girls.
Methods: On an annual basis from ages 6 to 10, 23 able-bodied children (14 girls, 9 boys) completed six 5-min walking bouts at speeds ranging from 40.2 to 107.2 m·min-1. Before testing, each child received 60 min of treadmill walking practice. During the last 2 min of each walking trial, a 2-min sample of expired gas was collected in a meteorological balloon and analyzed to determine V̇O2.
Results: Stepwise regression analyses indicated that the following equation was best suited to predict walking V̇O2: V̇O2 = 24.852 + 0.003214 (walking speed in m·min-1)2 - 0.995 (age in yr) - 0.263 (walking speed); R = 0.95; SEE = 1.74 mL·kg-1·min-1. Bland-Altman analysis revealed that 95% of the differences between actual and predicted V̇O2 values fell within a range of 3.39 to -3.43 mL·kg-1·min-1.
Conclusion: We conclude that V̇O2 during level treadmill walking can be predicted accurately in healthy young children.