96 BENEDICT AND JOHNSON— ENERGY LOSS OF 



ment and per individual. Two experiments with eighteen and 

 twenty women, covering a total of three periods, gave values of 0.31 

 and 0.32 calorie, respectively, averaging 0.32 calorie. It thus ap- 

 pears that with young women an energy expenditure of approxi- 

 ately one third calorie is required for the activity of standing up and 

 sitting down. 



On one date, April 6, 191 8, a group of twenty-five young women 

 marched slowly about the respiration chamber for twenty-five 

 minutes. The distance walked in going around the chamber once 

 was forty-five feet ; this was accomplished about fifty-three times 

 in twenty-five minutes, the exact total distance walked being 2,356 

 feet. On that particular day the standard value found and used 

 for the base line was 1.20 calories per kilogram per hour. During 

 the walking the heat output was 2.44 calories per kilogram per hour, 

 or an increment over the standard value of 1.24 calories per kilogram 

 per hour. The rate of walking was 1.08 miles an hour and the 

 average weight of the subjects fifty-fovir kilograms, from which 

 it is readily computed that at this very slow rate of walking the 

 energy above basal required for transporting the body was sixty-two 

 calories per mile. While very few of the experiments on walking 

 made in the Nutrition Laboratory employed so slow a rate of walk- 

 ing as this, many of our observations with slightly faster rates give 

 values from 40 to 60 calories per mile although usually with men, 

 with consequently somewhat higher body-weights. Too little evi- 

 dence is thus available to indicate whether or not walking at so 

 slow a rate is performed on a distinctly uneconomical basis. The 

 value is not far from that commonly quoted from German sources 

 for the energy required in walking one mile at a moderate rate. 



The method used in this research seems to be well founded and 

 applicable to such study. An extension of these observations is 

 planned to include not only women and children, but also men en- 

 gaged in various activities, these studies forming a part of the 

 general study of muscular work now in progress at the Nutrition 

 Laboratory. 



Nutrition Laboratory, 



Carnegie Institution of Washington, 

 Boston. 



