Assessment of Energy Expenditure of Walking Based on Heart Rate Monitoring by Gender

It is a fact that the ass ess ment of energy expenditure can play a pivotal role in pro moting a healthy lifes tyle and pres erve lifes pan. The s tudy regarding energy expenditure inde x (EEI) of wa lking can be des ignated as the most recommended s trategy to evalu ate the oxygen uptake accurately and indirect ly a mong people. Moreover, heart rate (HR) and walking s peed have been previous ly shown to be linearly re lated to oxygen uptake at s ub -ma xima l e xe rcis e levels . Co mbination of thes e two para meters yields a s ingle value in beats per meter i.e. the energy e xpenditure index (EEI). This s tudy was aimed to determine the diffe rences of EEI o f walking between males and fe ma les . Ninety s ix hea lthy s tudents of age in average 22.3± 1.5years fro m Un ivers ity Kebangs aan Malays ia (48 fe ma les and 48 ma les ) partic ipated in -1 this s tudy to be inves tigated for EEI values at s peed of cas ual walking; 76.7m.min . Information regard ing the s ubject’s med ical his tory was acquired by a ques tionnaire. In addit ion, phys ical ch aracters (we ight, height and leg length) we re meas ured us ing stadio meter, digita l we ighing s cale and a non -elas tic tape for both groups . The heart rate (HR) was ass es s ed at res ting pos ition as well as walking on a treadmill with a HR monitor in order to d etermine the EEI of wa lking. -1 The mean EEI values for fema les and males were 0.58 (± 0.08) and 0.51 (± 0.06) beats .m res pectively. The results of t-test -1 demons trated a s ignificant difference between EEI’s fe ma les and ma les (t= -4.527, p=0.00) at s peed 4.6km.h . In conclus ion, this incons is tency might be e xpla ined by greater variability of s ubject’s weight, leg length, height to leg length ratio, res ting heart rate, s peed, and gait parameters of walking which s ignificantly influenced on EEI of wa lking in both genders .