Sources of inadequacy of the international recommendations on human energy requirements for the Brazilian population

Revista Brasileira de Epidemiologia

Vasconcellos, Mauricio Teixeira Leite de¹ 

[1] Fundação Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

关键词: Energy requirements;    Surveys;    Energy metabolism;    Estimation methods;   

DOI  :  10.1590/S1415-790X2002000400008

学科分类：过敏症与临床免疫学

来源: SciELO

【 摘 要 】

The internationalrecommendations on human energy requirements (ER), proposed by FAO/WHO/UNU in1985, represent a significant methodological progress since they changed themethod of estimating ER from the average energy intake of healthy people tothe daily energy expenditure of the population. This change was based on theobservation that estimation based on energy intake yielded a circular argumentin which the intake was not the most appropriate way to maintain healthy weightand optimal levels of physical activity for health on the long run.
The 1994meeting of the International Dietary Energy Consultative Group, published in1996, as well as papers by national and international authors indicate thatthe principal problems in the proposed method are related to:
• theadequacy of the equations to estimate the basal metabolic rate (BMR);
• thephysical activity level (PAL) values;
• themechanisms of adaptation;
• themethod proposed to children under 10 years.
For Brazil,the BMR equations tend to overestimate adults' BMR and the PAL values are notappropriated to the population, as shown by recent studies on BMR measurementand PAL values estimation.
Comparingthe ER assessed by the factorial method (based on the duration of the activitiesand the correspondent integrated energy indexes) with the simplified one (basedon recommended PAL values), this paper shows that the recommended PAL values:
• for18-59 year-old women represent higher ER (from 11% to 17%) than necessary whichcould make these women become obese;
• for10-17 and 60+ year-old males and 11-17 year-old females will lead to undernutritionby not incorporating provisions for the occupational activities;
• for18-59 year-old males can only be used to calculate the mean for the total population,because its use for the rural and urban populations separately will lead tounder and overnutrition, respectively.
At last,the paper shows that the mean ER based on the estimated PAL values is very nearto the mean ER based on the factorial method for all the strata defined. Consideringthat the Brazilian Official Statistical System has enough information to estimatePAL values more adequate to several stratifications of the population, thispaper suggests determining ER based on the national estimated PAL values.

【 授权许可】

CC BY