of hard work or taking a respite for nutritional recovery. The nature of house- ... ment of Anthropology, 43 Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HN, UK. 0 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc ...
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY 8263-274 (1996)
Physical Activity, Energy Stores, and Seasonal Energy Balance Among Men and Women in Nepali Households CATHERINE PANTER-BRICK Department of Anthropulogy, Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT The relationships among initial energy stores (body mass index), energy turnover (physical activity levels), and seasonal energy balance (weight changes) were examined in subsistence agropastoralists in rural Nepal. The population experiences no actual food shortage, but has a seasonal increase in physical activity levels, which are moderately heavy in early winter and very heavy in the monsoon season [men, 1.88 and 2.22 X basal metabolic rate (BMR); women, 1.77 and 2.01 X BMR in the respective seasons]. Repeated anthropometry in 1982 (29 men and 34 women), 1983 (29 men and 29 women), 1991 (22 men and 48 women), and 1993 (48 men and 72 women) showed a consistent interannual pattern of significant but modest seasonal weight change (21.5 kg/ma. Significant differences between BMI suhgroups (ANOVA with age and/or lactation status as covariates): *I' < 0.05; **P < 0.005. PAL, physical activity level.
they come from poorer households with less land to cultivate. Energy turnover and lifestyle What elements of lifestyle can explain the observations on this Nepali population? A tentative picture can be drawn from the TEE data for 1983, but samples are very re-
stricted (Table 5), since data were not originally collected with the specific aim of exploring differences between BMI subgroups. TEE emerges as a significant variable in some of the multiple regressions performed on the impact of biological and lifestyle variables on seasonal weight changes. TEE values are presented below for contrasting BMI
27 1
ACTIVITY, ENERGY STORES, AND ENERGY BALANCE
TABLE 5. Seasonality of total energy expenditure (TEE, M J I d ) for body mass index IBMI) subgroups in period I , 1983
