| Food and Nutrition: physical activity level |
Total energy cost of physical activity throughout the day, expressed as a ratio of basal metabolic rate. Calculated from the physical activity ratio for each activity, multiplied by the time spent in that activity. A desirable PAL for health is considered to be 1.7; the average in the UK is 1.4.
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| Sports Science and Medicine: Physical Activity Level |
Daily physical activity; the sum of the cost of all the physical activities over a 24 hour period. PAL = total energy required over 24 h/BMR over 24 h. According to World Heath Organization statistics, the desirable PAL for cardiovascular health is 1.7; the average PAL in the UK is 1.4, with only 13% of women and 22% of men achieving a PAL of 1.7. For those engaged in hard physical activity, the PAL is 2.14. In a group of novice athletes training for the half marathon, the average PAL at the start of training was 1.66, and after 10 weeks of training it was 2.03.
| Wikipedia: Physical activity level |
The physical activity level (PAL) is a way to express a person's daily physical activity as a number, and is used to estimate a person's total energy expenditure[1]. In combination with the basal metabolic rate, it can be used to compute the amount of food energy a person needs to consume in order to maintain a particular lifestyle.
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The physical activity level is defined for a non-pregnant, non-lactating adult as that person's total energy expenditure in a 24-hour period, divided by his or her basal metabolic rate (BMR)[2]:
The physical activity level can also be estimated based on a list of the (physical) activities a person performs from day to day. Each activity is connected to a number, the physical activity ratio. The physical activity level is then the time-weighted average of the physical activity ratios.
The following table shows indicative numbers for the Physical activity level for several lifestyles[3]:
| Lifestyle | Example | PAL |
|---|---|---|
| Extremely inactive | Cerebral Palsy patient | <1.40 |
| Sedentary | Office worker getting little or no exercise | 1.40-1.69 |
| Moderately active | Construction worker or person running one hour daily | 1.70-1.99 |
| Vigorously active | Agricultural worker (non mechanized) or person swimming two hours daily | 2.00-2.40 |
| Extremely activie | Competitive cyclist | >2.40 |
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 | Food and Nutrition. A Dictionary of Food and Nutrition. Copyright © 1995, 2003, 2005 by A. E. Bender and D. A. Bender. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Sports Science and Medicine. The Oxford Dictionary of Sports Science & Medicine. Copyright © Michael Kent 1998, 2006, 2007. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Physical activity level". Read more |
