International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ)
The IPAQ estimates a person's weekly physical activity in MET-minutes and sorts them into low, moderate or high activity levels from walking, moderate and vigorous activity.
Plain English
Patient-Friendly Explanation
The International Physical Activity Questionnaire, or IPAQ, asks how active a person has been in the last seven days. The short version is about seven questions: on how many days did you walk for at least ten minutes, how many days did you do moderate activity (brisk walking, cycling at a regular pace, vacuuming, gardening), how many days did you do vigorous activity (running, aerobics, heavy lifting), and how long did you spend on each of those days. A separate question records sitting time. Each activity is given a fixed intensity value - walking 3.3, moderate 4.0 and vigorous 8.0 - and the score is simply minutes multiplied by days multiplied by that value, giving MET-minutes per week. That number places people into three groups: low, moderate (at least 600 MET-minutes a week) and high (at least 3,000). In practical terms, 30 minutes of walking five days a week is about 495 MET-minutes, and it takes a combination of brisk walking, moderate and vigorous activity to move someone from low to high. The advantage in a weight clinic is that it replaces the vague answer that someone is fairly active with a number the doctor can work with, and it usually shows which part is missing - the daily walking, the harder sessions, or both.
Medical
Clinical Definition
The IPAQ was developed between 1997 and 1998 by an international consensus group to standardise cross-national monitoring of physical activity, producing eight instruments that crossed short and long forms with telephone or self-administration and either a last-seven-days or a usual-week recall period. The international reliability and validity study across 12 countries (Craig and colleagues, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 2003;35:1381-95) found repeatable data with Spearman coefficients clustering around 0.8 for both forms and a median criterion correlation of about 0.30 against accelerometry - comparable to other self-report instruments, and better for classifying activity level than for measuring energy expenditure. The short form has seven items and is recommended for population monitoring; the long form has 27 items covering work, transport, household and leisure domains and is preferred for detailed research. Continuous scores are expressed in MET-minutes per week using the fixed values walking 3.3, moderate 4.0 and vigorous 8.0 METs, and the categorical variable uses three levels: low, moderate (at least 600 MET-minutes a week, or five or more days of any combination of walking and moderate or vigorous activity) and high (at least 3,000 MET-minutes a week, or seven or more days of combined activity). The sitting item is an additional indicator and is excluded from the activity score. Known limitations are over-reporting and social desirability bias, which is why it is used alongside objective measures such as pedometers, accelerometers, six-minute walk testing and cardiopulmonary exercise testing when precision matters.
Key Insight
Why It Matters
It turns the vague claim of being fairly active into a number that can be acted on - and it usually shows the walking is already there while the vigorous minutes are not.
Sources
Reviewed against standard medical references.
Medically reviewed by
Family Physician & Registered Acupuncturist, Accord Medical Clinic. MBBS (NUS), Graduate Diploma in Family Medicine (NUS), Graduate Diploma in Acupuncture (Singapore College of TCM).
Last reviewed: September 2026
This page is general health education, not medical advice. Whether any treatment is appropriate for you is a decision made in consultation after assessment.
