Diet, activity and body-weight. A study of variations in a woman

Abstract

Metabolic and clinical investigations may involve the measurement of comparatively small changes in body-weight between the beginning and end of a period. Even with accurate scales and a carefully standardized procedure, the results may be distorted or obscured by short-term fluctuations of weight, which are difficult to control because their nature is not fully understood. These rapid fluctuations were referred to several times at a recent symposium of The Nutrition Society on Calorie Balance in Man. Durnin (1961) mentioned changes in weight from day to day of up to I kg in a group of forty-four men living under controlled conditions, and Edholm (1961) reported that in a group of twelve young soldiers weighed daily for a period of 7 weeks, a weight change of more than 0.5 kg from one day to the next was found on over a hundred occasions and weight changes of I kg or more were observed on thirty occasions. Elkinton & Danowski (1955) found a maximum weight change of about I kg from one day to the next, in one man whose basal body-weight was determined on 53 of 56 consecutive days; the standard deviation of body-weight was 5 0.86 lb or 5 0.51 yo of the body-weight. Graphs of the daily basal weight of fourteen women for 35 days, published by Thomas ( 1 9 5 3 )~ show similar weight fluctuations. T h e literature otherwise contains very little information about daily weight changes.The original object of the study reported here was to investigate possible changes in weight and food intake related to the menstrual cycle in one subject. Such changes were not found, but the figures collected illustrate the extent of daily fluctuations in weight and help to explain them in terms of food intake, water balance and activity. E X P E R I M E N T A LProcedure. Daily measurements of food and water intake, body-weight and urine output were made on one subject during two periods. During the first period (A) of 80 days (8 October to 26 December 1958), ordinary food habits and activities were maintained and a record of activity was kept for part of the time. During a second period (B) of 35 days (9 April to 13 May

Evaluating energy intake measurement in free-living subjects: when to record and for how long?

“…The weekday and weekend energy and nutrient intakes were also analysed to assess whether our results agree with previous findings (8,9) . All of these issues could have practical implications for large nutritional assessment studies where baseline data are collected over a prolonged time.…”

Direct and indirect effects of leptin on adipocyte metabolism

“…This slow, but precise regulation allows the body weight of an individual to fluctuate around a stable mean [3–4]. Various hypotheses have been put forward as to the feedback signal that would allow body weight to be controlled including mechanisms that regulate blood glucose [5], amino acids [6] or body temperature [7].…”

Day-to-day weight changes in young men

“…They observed changes which ranged between a loss of 2.5 kg up to a gain of 9"5 kg or water. Taggart (1962) recorded the body-weight of one woman daily, except weekends, for two periods of 80 and 35 days. There was considerable day-to-day fluctuation in body-weight, ranging from --0.81 to +0.77 kg.…”