Gender differences on factors affecting the resting metabolic rate of academicians

BACKGROUND: There is an increasing interest to improve the physical activity level of people working in offices mostly spending their time in sitting who may be under the risks of obesity. This is especially increasing its importance worldwide due to recent 'stay at home trend' of COVID-19 pandemics. Academicians are the group of people having tendency to develop a sedentary lifestyle and become overweight due to long sitting hours of work. Thus, the aim of this study is to understand the gender differences on factors affecting the resting metabolic rate of academic personnel. METHODS: Data on demographic information, Body Mass Index, resting metabolic rate (RMR), physical activity levels of academicians (N.=62, 32W, 30M) have been collected. RESULTS: Their total weekly energy expenditure in relation to total physical activity was similar to each other as 1743.4 +/- 2189.10 MET-min/week for men and 1074.04 +/- 1299.09 MET-min/week for women. The RMR was significantly higher in men (1994.66 +/- 683.41 kcal/day) than women (1467.81 +/- 311.47 kcal/day) (P<0.001). Supporting this outcome, percent body fat was found higher in women (26.38 +/- 6.62%) than men (21.46 +/- 6.17%) (P<0.05). Men spent longer times "sitting" (P<0.05), it had a weak effect on their total physical activity (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Although women were sitting less than men during day, they were less physically active. Men were more involved with heavy to moderate physical activities with higher resting metabolic rate. Since walking was a pre-ferred activity in both genders, they may be motivated to increase their walking based physical activity in and out of the campus as well as at home.