Measuring energy expenditure and preferred mode of exercise in females who are overweight or obese

Abstract

Overweight and obesity are major concerns in the United States because of the negative impact excess adiposity can have on health. Increasing physical activity is beneficial in reducing body mass and improving health and towards these goals, it is important to be able to quantify caloric expenditure during exercise. Therefore, the purpose of the first study was to determine if there were differences in energy expenditure, self-selected exercise intensity, and exercise perception in overweight and obese females (N = 40) that completed identical live and video-guided circuit-style exercise sessions. The purpose of the second study was to validate the SenseWear^TM armband (SWA) in assessing energy expenditure during an exercise session by comparing it to open-circuit calorimetry.

When comparing the live and video-guided exercise sessions, energy expenditure was significantly higher (p < .001), and heart rate approached significance (p = .061) during the live exercise session. Participants were significantly more comfortable during the live session (p = .011) with the majority (87.5%) self-reporting the live session as preferred over the video-guided session. The SWA was not significantly correlated with the Oxycon, r (40) = .28, p = .075, and over-predicted energy expenditure when rest periods were excluded (p < .001), particularly for vertical punches (p < .001), boxer shuffle (p < .001), and windmills (p = .003). Energy expenditure during the rest periods was significantly under predicted by the SWA (p = .007) leading a non-significant difference in total energy expenditure (p = .882) for the exercise session.

Overall, it was found that females that are overweight or obese who exercise with a live trainer expend more calories than when exercising with a video. While the SWA was accurate in assessing overall caloric expenditure during the circuit-style sessions, it underestimated caloric expenditure during the rest periods and overestimated energy expenditure during the exercise periods.