A simplified method for assessing physical activity level values for a country or study population

To describe a method to estimate physical activity level (PAL) values based on household surveys in which representative information of the population on the distribution of sex, age, occupation and daily working hours is obtained, and to compare them to the recommended PAL (RPAL) values.

Data of 267446 individuals of a probabilistic sample from a Brazilian food consumption and family budget survey were used to estimate two different sets of estimated PAL (EPAL) values: (1) considering sex, age group and geographical area and (2) the above plus expenditure class, defined by the quartiles of per capita expenditure.

The EPAL values derived by the proposed method indicated that: (l) the RPAL values for 18+y-old women represent higher energy requirements (ERs) than necessary, which could make these women become obese; (2) the RPAL values for 18 to 59-y-old males can only be used to calculate the mean for the total population, because their use for the rural and urban populations separately will lead to severe physiological effects-under- and overnutrition, respectively; and (3) the RPAL values for 10 to 17 and 60+y-old males and 11 to 17-y-old females will lead to undernutrition by not incorporating provisions for the occupational activities.

Sex- and age-specific RPAL values are not appropriate for the calculation of ERs of the Brazilian population. PAL values must be estimated and constantly recalculated as soon as the required information becomes available. It is important that these EPAL values be disseminated so that more adequate ERs are calculated.