Metabolic equivalent of task

Common card · No. 207233

The metabolic equivalent of task (MET) is the objective measure of the ratio of the rate at which a person expends energy, relative to the mass of that person, while performing some specific physical activity compared to a reference, currently set by convention at an absolute 3.5 mL of oxygen per kg per minute, which is the energy expended when sitting quietly by a reference individual, chosen to be roughly representative of the general population, and thereby suited to epidemiological surveys. A Compendium of Physical Activities is available online, which provides MET values for hundreds of activities. A primary use of METs is to grade activity levels for common household activities (such as cleaning) and common exercise modalities (such as running). Vigorous household chores can add up to as much energy expenditure as dedicated exercise, so it is necessary to include both, suitably pro rata, in an assessment of general fitness. An earlier convention defined the MET as a multiple of the...

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