The Estimation of the Daily Energy Expenditure of Korean Adolescents

Kim, Youngnam; Na, Hyeon Ju

Abstract

Middle and high school students in Korea spend a lot of time at school. In other words, many Korean teenagers spend most of their time studying, and have little time for other activities, such as physical workouts. Fewer physical activities, and consumption of many snacks, etc. may lead to overweight or obesity in some teenagers. This study was conducted to find out the activity levels of teenagers' in order to calculate their daily energy expenditures. A total of 1,192 students (461 middle school students and 731 high school students) who lives in either a city or a country area were recruited for this study. One-day Activity Diaries were collected using questionnaires and analyzed by means of SPSS/win. The participating students spent about 7 hours 24 minutes resting including sleeping; 6 hours 28 minutes studying, 4 hours 4 minutes in leisure activities, 1 hour 32 minutes in personal hygiene activities such as washing, dressing and undressing, etc., 50 minutes on transportation : and 23 minutes on household chores such as cleaning, doing the laundry, etc. The average activity factor was 1.49. That of middle school female students was the lowest at 1.47, followed by middle school male students at 1.48, high school female students at 1.49, and high school male students at 1.51. The daily energy expenditure of middle and high school male students was 2,289 kcal and 2,600 kcal, respectively. That of female students was 1,959 kcal and 2,067 kcal, respectively.