Youth Energy Expenditure During Common Free-Living Activities and Treadmill Walking
in Journal of Physical Activity and HealthClick name to view affiliation
Background:
Energy expenditure (EE) estimates for a broad age range of youth performing a variety of activities are needed.
Methods:
106 participants (6–18 years) completed 6 free-living activities (seated rest, movie watching, coloring, stair climbing, basketball dribbling, jumping jacks) and up to 9 treadmill walking bouts (13.4 to 120.7 m/min; 13.4 m/min increments). Breath-by-breath oxygen uptake (VO2) was measured using the COSMED K4b2 and EE was quantified as youth metabolic equivalents (METy1:VO2/measured resting VO2, METy2:VO2/estimated resting VO2). Age trends were evaluated with ANOVA.
Results:
Seated movie watching produced the lowest mean METy1 (6- to 9-year-olds: 0.94 ± 0.13) and METy2 values (13- to 15-year-olds: 1.10 ± 0.19), and jumping jacks produced the highest mean METy1 (13- to 15-year-olds: 6.89 ± 1.47) and METy2 values (16- to 18-year-olds: 8.61 ± 2.03). Significant age-related variability in METy1 and METy2 were noted for 8 and 2 of the 15 evaluated activities, respectively.
Conclusions:
Descriptive EE data presented herein will augment the Youth Compendium of Physical Activities.
Schuna (John.Schuna@oregonstate.edu) is with the School of Biological and Population Health Sciences, Oregon State University. Barreira is with the Dept of Exercise Science, Syracuse University. Hsia is with the Joint Diabetes Endocrinology and Metabolism Program; Johnson is with the Biostatistics and Analysis Core, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, LA. Tudor-Locke is with the Dept of Kinesiology, University of Massachusetts Amherst. Schuna, Barreira, and Tudor-Locke are also with the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, LA.
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