Physical activity level

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title: "Physical activity level" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["nutritional-physiology", "physical-exercise", "sports-nutrition"] description: "Way of expressing a person's daily physical activity" topic_path: "science/biology" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_activity_level" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Way of expressing a person's daily physical activity ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Soldier_running_in_water.jpg" caption="[[United States Marine]] triathlete in 2005."] ::

The physical activity level (PAL) is a way to express a person's daily physical activity as a number and is used to estimate their total energy expenditure. In combination with the basal metabolic rate, it can be used to compute the amount of food energy a person needs to consume to maintain a particular lifestyle.

Definition

The physical activity level is defined for a non-pregnant, non-lactating adult as that person's total energy expenditure (TEE) in a 24-hour period, divided by his or her basal metabolic rate (BMR):

:\text{PAL}=\frac{TEE_{24h}}{\text{BMR}}

The level of physical activity can also be estimated based on a list of the physical activities a person performs from day to day. Each activity is connected to a number, the physical activity ratio. The physical activity level is then the time-weighted average of the physical activity ratios.

Examples

The following table shows indicative numbers for the Physical activity level for several lifestyles: ::data[format=table]

Lifestyle	Example	PAL
Extremely inactive	Cerebral palsy patient
Sedentary	Office worker getting little or no exercise	1.40-1.69
Moderately active	Construction worker or person running one hour daily	1.70-1.99
Vigorously active	Agricultural worker (non mechanized) or person swimming two hours daily	2.00-2.4
Extremely active	Competitive cyclist	2.40
::

References

References

1. (1994-11-04). "Total Energy Expenditure (TEE) and Physical Activity Levels (PAL) in Adults". Getifitup.com.
2. (2004). "Human energy requirements: Principles and Definitions". [[Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations]].
3. (2004). "Human energy requirements: Energy Requirement of Adults". [[Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations]].

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