Methods for Estimating Current and Recommended Daily Calories

 

 

 

Energy Use, Blue Water Footprint, and Greenhouse Gas Emissions for Current Food Consumption Patterns and Dietary Recommendations in the US

Supplementary Information

 

 

Michelle S. Tom¹, Paul S. Fischbeck^2,3, Chris T. Hendrickson¹

¹Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, Carnegie Mellon University,

5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, United States

²Department of Engineering and Public Policy,

Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, United States

 

³Department of Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, United States

 

 

Corresponding author email: [e-mail]

1.  Methods and Data

1.1 Daily Calories per US adult

Anthropometric parameters for the Resting Energy Expenditure (REE) predictive equations along with physical activity data are retrieved from the CDC National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which interviews and examines thousands of respondents in the US each year (CDC 2014). Requisite anthropometric data for each adult respondent is input into the eight REE equations to calculate a range of predicted REEs for each respondent. Additionally, Metabolic Equivalent of Task (MET) scores, which provide energy expenditures for given physical activities at a designated intensity, are used to determine the Caloric cost of each activity in which individuals participate (Gerrior et al. 2006). The sum of these scores are then used to estimate total physical activity levels (PALs) (sedentary:1.0 ≤ PAL <1.4, low active:1.4 ≤ PAL <1.6, active: 1.6 ≤ PAL <1.9, or very active: 1.9 ≤ PAL <2.5) for each respondent. The corresponding physical activity factors for each level are 1.0, 1.12, 1.27, and 1.54 for men and 1.0, 1.14, 1.27, and 1.45 for women, respectively (Gerrior et al. 2006). The products of REEs and physical activity factors yield a range of daily Caloric intake, or Total Energy Expenditure (TEE), for each respondent. A basic formulation for daily per-capita TEE in the US then follows as:

(1)

Where m represents the number of adults surveyed, n represents the number of adults in the US (US Census Bureau 2013) and Weight Factor_i is the number of people in the US that survey participant, i, represents. The weight factor parameters are specified by the CDC and applied to this analysis to ensure adequate representation of Caloric intake estimates for the US population. 

Daily recommended Caloric intake is estimated in a similar manner. However, for REE in equation 2, actual weight is replaced with maximum healthy or “normal” weight (MNW), which is estimated as:

(2)

 

Where BMI is set to 25, the overweight threshold, and H is height in meters (CDC 2015).

The difference between TEE and recommended TEE is the amount of extra Calories an individual consumes. Extra Caloric intake is estimated for each overweight and obese respondent. This study does not account for the deprivation of Calories by underweight individuals or for normal weight examinees whose weights fall below their estimated maximum normal weight values. Underweight and normal weight individuals, however, are included in the total adult population estimates.