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The Basal Metabolism of Two Hundred and Eighteen Girls and Young Women of Southern Arizona, Fourteen to Twenty-Three Years of Age, Inclusive

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School of Home Economics, College of Agriculture, University of Arizona, Tucson

1. Basal metabolism determinations have been made on 218 girls and young women of southern Arizona from 14 to 23 years of age, inclusive.

2. Calories per m² per hour were calculated by 4 methods of evaluating individual tests: (1) average of results of all tests within 5% of one accepted as a base line on at least two mornings, (2) average of all tests, (3) first tests only, (4) average of tests on first mornings only.

3. Smoothed yearly means in calories dropped sharply by all methods, by the first method from 36.40 to 31.21 for the years from 14 to 18, inclusive. Correlation with age was found to be highly significant statistically by the first two methods and less significant by the other two. When reducing the true yearly means to linear form, it was found that of the 4 methods of evaluating individual tests the best straight line fit was obtained by means of the second method and the next by the first. When the respective yearly means obtained by each of these two methods were compared, no statistically significant differences were found although those by the first were lower in each case. Variability around the means was less by the second method.

4. Lumped means of 31.1 and 31.5 calories were taken for the first two methods, respectively, for the years 18 to 23, inclusive. This low energy level would seem to indicate the appearance in women at this time of the zone of minimal metabolism demonstrated by Hardy, Milhorat and DuBois (’41).

5. When the 18-year-old group was compared with similar groups of the same age reported from 5 midwestern states, a diminishing metabolism was observed with increasing mean annual temperature.

6. The present study was made at an altitude of 2400 feet. If altitude per se tends to increase basal metabolism, as some investigators have claimed, then the present low level of metabolism should not have been observed. Therefore our data do not support this view.