BIRACIAL DIFFERENCES IN PHYSICAL-ACTIVITY AND BODY-COMPOSITION AMONG WOMEN

Overweight among black females Is almost two times as frequent as amon g white females, Genetics, caloric intake, and physical activity have been identified as possible explanatory factors, This study assessed t he differences in physical activity and body composition in 76 white a nd 66 black adult females, Black women had significantly higher (p=.00 01) percent body fat (32.2 +/- 7.1) than white women (27.7 +/- 6.5) wi th a similar difference in weight (4.4 kg) approaching significance (p =.055), Physical activity was assessed using a structured 24-hour reca ll instrument, A purposive sampling design was implemented to control for age, education and occupation, A summary physical activity value u nit for the 24-hour period revealed a significantly greater mean value for white females (41.93 +/- 4.7) than for black females (40.01 +/- 3 .9) suggesting white females were more physically active (p=.02) altho ugh this was not a function of biracial differences in play/recreation and exercise/sport type of activities, Although both black and white females were found to be sedentary (MET value less than or equal to 2) over 90 percent of the time, black women were significantly more sede ntary (p=.03), Biracial differences in discretionary non-exercise orie nted activities may contribute to different rates of overweight observ ed between black and white women.