Having Fun Burning Calories

Overview

Objectives/Goals The purpose of this experiment is to determine which of my typical daily physical activities burns the most calories. The three activities I chose are playing tennis, playing Wii Dance video game and walking my dog around our hilly neighborhood. My hypothesis was that playing tennis would burn the most calories. Methods/Materials Each activity was done for 30 minutes as measured by a stopwatch and each activity was repeated ten times over ten days. I wore a pedometer during each activity to measure the number of steps taken. This data was averaged for the ten trials of each activity, and the number of steps taken was used to calculate the calories I burned during the course of each activity using this formula: Calories burned for each activity = # of steps x 2 feet/1 step x 1 mile/5,280 feet x 0.5 calories/miles per lbs x 102 lbs (my weight) Results The data revealed that the average calories burned for tennis, Wii Dance and walking the dog were 48 calories, 42 calories and 62 calories, respectively. Surprisingly, and contrary to the hypothesis, walking the dog for 30 minutes in my neighborhood burns more calories than playing tennis or playing Wii dance. Conclusions/Discussion To put these results in the context of my daily life, I compared the calories contained in the snacks I buy in school, like Funyuns and apples, to the calories I burned in the three activities tested. Amazingly, according to my results, I would have to play 4.5 hours of tennis to burn off one bag of Funyuns (390 calories). An apple (50 calories) however, would take about a half hour of tennis to burn off. There are many other interesting comparisons I have made with other foods I eat. I hope to make healthier food choices as a result of this eye-opening project. As our nation struggles with a childhood obesity epidemic, hopefully this and similar projects can have a positive impact.

Competition history

• CSEF 2011 Mammalian Biology · Entry J1221

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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