The Youth Compendium of Physical Activities provides a list of 196 common activities in which youth participate and the estimated energy cost associated with each activity. It can be used by a wide variety of people—including researchers, health care professionals, teachers and coaches, and fitness professionals—and in a variety of ways—including research, public health policy making, education, and interventions to encourage physical activity in youth.

The Youth Compendium provides energy cost values for:

• Sedentary activities, such as lying down or watching TV
• Standing, doing household chores, and playing active video games
• Playing and participating in games and sports activities
• Walking and running

The youth MET (MET_y) values in the Youth Compendium were derived from literature reviews, data analysis, and imputation (Butte et al., 2017).

What is a youth MET?

A MET, or metabolic equivalent, is a unit that represents the metabolic cost of physical activity. MET_y is a MET that has been adjusted to account for the unique physiological characteristics of children and adolescents. A MET_y is the ratio of an activity-specific metabolic rate to the estimated basal metabolic rate (BMR, or the energy the body needs to function while at rest). For example, playing "volleyball" for 6-9 year olds has a MET_y value of 5.0. This means that, for a child this age, playing volleyball has an energy cost about 5 times higher than BMR.

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