Introduction: Physical activity has shown positive effects on health and welfare of people, however, multiple factors, called determinants, interact and modulate their practice. Different interventions in schools have been implemented to promote it, so that different questionnaires have been designed for measurement. Objectives: Synthesize information on the importance of physical activity, and its determinants in children and adolescents, and analyze the reliability and criterion validity of questionnaires for measurement. Results: The questionnaires were reproducible between 0,22 and 0,94. Criterion validity was moderate with coefficients between 0,03 and 0,78. Conclusions: The review shows evidence that the practice of physical activity promotes health and wellbeing of children and adolescents, reproducible results, raised its usefulness to determine changes in the levels of AF product different intervention strategies. Salud UIS 2010; 42: 153-165