Validated caloric expenditure estimation using a single body-worn sensor

In 2007, approximately 30% of US adults were obese, with related health care costs exceeding 100 billion dollars. Clearly, the obesity epidemic represents a growing societal concern. One challenge in weight control is the difficulty of tracking food calories consumed and calories expended by activity. This paper presents a system for automatic monitoring of calories expended using a single body-worn accelerometer. Our system uses activity inference combined with signal analysis to estimate calories expended in realtime using regression formulas developed by the American College of Sports Medicine. To validate our system, we have collected data from 51 subjects in a laboratory setting using a treadmill and a more natural field test. Actual caloric expenditure was determined using the medical “gold standard” measurement, of oxygen consumption. We are able to achieve 89% accuracy with lab data and 79% with field data – both high enough to be useful in practice. Author Keywords perv...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: HUC
• Authors: Jonathan Lester, Carl Hartung, Laura Pina, Ryan Libby, Gaetano Borriello, Glen Duncan
• Keywords: Actual Caloric Expenditure, Calories, Food Calories, HUC 2009, Human Computer Interaction