Daily metabolic expenditures: estimates from US, UK and polish time-use data

Teresa Harms,David Berrigan,Jonathan Gershuny

doi:10.1186/s12889-019-6762-9

Teresa Harms, David Berrigan + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-6762-9

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Abstract

BackgroundBehaviour has diverse economic, social and health consequences. Linking time spent in different daily activities to energy expenditure (EE) is one way of investigating the health and physiological consequences of behaviour and identifying targets to improve population health and well-being.MethodsWe estimated behaviour-related EE for respondents to time use surveys (TUS) from three countries: UK 2001, Poland 2012 and US 2003–13. The Harmonised Multinational Time Use Survey (MTUS) activity categories were matched to MET estimates from the 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities. We attach METs values to each successive activity in the TUS, together with both the original UK, Polish and US activity classifications and the 68-category MTUS activity classification. We used TUS estimates of activity durations across 24-h to estimate the Physical Activity Level (PAL) for respondents from the three countries and the average time spent and MET values for different activity categories.ResultsPAL values ranged from 1.59 in the US to 1.74 in Poland. The main sources of daily EE from PA were paid and unpaid work activities. Discretionary PA accounted for only a very small part (~ 3%) of adult daily energy expenditures. Using the harmonised MTUS 68-activity classification reduced the variability of the aggregate PAEE measure by ~ 20%, but the patterns of association between key demographics (age, sex, educational attainment) were unaffected. TUS data were further used to (1) identify sources of daily PA, and (2) assess adherence to physical activity guidelines (PAG) on a single-day basis. Estimated adherence levels were similar to those reported from other TUS as well as frequency based estimates.ConclusionsComparative studies of energy expenditure based on harmonised time use activity categories could provide insight into the relative importance of different activities for energy expenditure across different countries and demographic groups. However, new observational studies combining TUS data with accelerometer, direct observation and other measures of activity intensity are required for more accurate MET assignments to activity categories in TUS.

Highlights

Behaviour has diverse economic, social and health consequences
We analysed national time use surveys (TUS) data from the UK, US and Poland to identify daily activities across 24-h, calculated aggregate daily Metabolic Equivalent of Task (MET) scores for the three activity coding lexicons using weighted average activity frequencies and durations for the harmonised Multinational Time Use Study (MTUS) activity categories based on underlying activity specific MET scores from Harmonised European Time Use Survey (HETUS) and American Time Use Survey (ATUS)
Effects of detail of classification on variability of Physical Activity Level (PAL) Most respondents reported engaging in 20 to 25 different activities on any given day, and these are dispersed across the 68 MTUS categories

Summary

Introduction

Social and health consequences. Linking time spent in different daily activities to energy expenditure (EE) is one way of investigating the health and physiological consequences of behaviour and identifying targets to improve population health and well-being. Harms et al BMC Public Health 2019, 19(Suppl 2):453 entire 24-h period have led to substantial research efforts aimed at improving the recording and measurement of PA [5,6,7]. These efforts have included a focus on direct (device-based) measurement [8,9,10,11,12,13] and self-report 24-h recall instruments [14, 15]. TUS provide data on how daily life varies across demographic groups, countries and decades [25, 26]

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