People have wondered for a long time how exercise and other activities affect the number of calories needed. A 1919 home economics textbook contained this table with U.S. Department of Agriculture data on the “average calorific requirements of the body under different conditions.” The book contained examples of how the table could be used to calculate the number of calories needed by an individual:
A woman of about 130 pounds, sleeping for 8 hours, doing light housework 10 hours, reading, etc. 6 hours, would require (8 X 56) + (10 X 148) + (6 X 87) = 2,450 calories. A boy of about the same weight with 8 hours sleep, 8 hours active exercise, 6 hours playing tennis (severe exercise) and 2 hours quiet would require (8 X 56) + (8 X 165) + (6 X 390) + (2 X 87) = 4,282 calories.
Household Engineering: Scientific Management in the Home by Christine Frederick (1919)
hmm. . . I wonder if the information in the 1919 table is still considered correct.
A Hundred Years Ago 
Seems likely to me.
I’m thinking that the use of modern technology might make the caloric estimates more precise, but that the numbers are probably similar.
I don’t know about the numbers, but I did think it interesting that they used the word ‘calorific’ rather than ‘caloric.’ I don’t remember coming across ‘calorific,’ although it’s certainly in the dictionary.
The Online Etymology Dictionary adds this little note in their entry on ‘calorie’: “Calorie-counting or -watching as a method of scientific weight-regulation is attested by 1908.” It didn’t take long for the practice to be accepted and make it into the textbooks!
Wow, it’s amazing how quickly information about calories went from being something that was just discovered to being included in textbooks. Calorific was a new word for me, too.
Severe exercise? Oh my! That sounds worrying to me. Now sitting quietly, that I understand.
The term “severe exercise” sure doesn’t make it sound very pleasant. Today I suppose that we’d call it vigorous exercise.
6 hours for reading, etc.! How I envy those people. Not so much the 10 hours of housework, which wouldn’t always be so light and most of the time harder than tennis at least. I don’t see how tennis qualifies as severe exercise.
The woman who did 10 hours of housework sure must have had a clean house!
That’s no doubt true, but 1919 was before the widespread use of domestic machinery. Common household machines were just coming in but wouldn’t really arrive until a couple of decades later ( https://lexanteinternet.blogspot.com/2013/11/women-in-workplace-it-was-maytag-that.html ). So everything associated with everything done in a home was a lot more laborious.
Doing laundry, cleaning the home, and preparing food sure have gotten easier over the years.
Sounds about right. What I’m wondering if thinking about playing tennis for six hours 🥵…helps me use up some calories…😂😂
Thinking about tennis must be worth a least a few calories. 🙂
Interesting stats! Sleeping sounds like just the right exercise for me though. 😊
Burning calories while I sleep are the easiest calories to burn each day. It’s too bad that it’s not more.
Hmmm – for today’s woman, doing “light housework” would involve burning a lot fewer calories per hour, I bet. I’m a woman of about 130 lbs who sleeps for 8 hours when I can get away with it, and my recommended calorie intake for weight maintenance is only about 1500per day, per my Kaiser Permanente resource.
I also thought that 2,450 calories sounded like a lot of calories for a woman. I think you’re right that “light housework” wasn’t really all that light a hundred years ago.
Personally, with no scientific backup, I believe the table showing calories burned by exercise is pure myth. I can sit quietly, looking at the picture of a cake, and feel the calories pouring in.
Strange, but I can also feel the calories pouring in when I look at a picture of a cake. 🙂
Fascinating book title. Is the book generally interesting?
It’s a fairly typical home economics textbook. I enjoy it because it provides a nice window into what was considered the proper way to cook, clean, and manage homes back then.
This was the era when it was believed that women should manage their homes in a scientific way just as men had jobs that required them to follow scientific principles. The belief was that this would result in women who felt fulfilled as homemakers and homes that were well-managed.
I am pleased to know that reading uses calories. My blog reading is more beneficial than I thought. You will probably know that one of the pioneers in scientific management was Dr Lillian Moller Gilbreth ( the mother in Cheaper by the Dozen ). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillian_Moller_Gilbreth She was an extraordinary woman.
Thanks for sharing the link. Lillian Moller Gilbreth sounds like a really interesting woman. I wasn’t familiar with her until I read your comment. I’m going to get Cheaper by the Dozen out of the library. I’d heard the title, but hadn’t realized that it was a humorous story about the application of time and motion studies to the organization of a family.
I remember it as an excellent book. I was young when I first read it and I don’t think I appreciated how amazing Lillian and her husband were.
I wonder at what point in history that enough persons had sufficient leisure to make general calorie awareness necessary against weight gain.
I think that the concept of calories (and a method to measure them) was developed in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s, so this was a new idea. Increased leisure time may have also made it a topic of more interest. Additionally, in the early 20th century, there was interest in feeding a family as healthily and inexpensively as possible – and figuring out calories so that everyone got what they needed was a part of that.
Sheryl, I had it backwards then – the initiative was to assure intake of enough healthy affordable calories to maintain weight, rather than to shed it. That makes total sense. Thanks much.
Yes, that’s my understanding. Back then there was concern about people not getting enough to eat. It makes me realize how lucky we are today. That said, I also seen hundred-year-old articles about how people should try to avoid becoming “stout” as they aged.
I agree with you, Sheryl. I wonder whether the figures are correct. So much new information now on metabolism, genetics, amount of ice cream consumed:)
It’s incredible how much researchers have learned about human physiology and related topics over the last hundred years.
Very interesting. I hadn’t considered that they thought about calories back then. Good find.
I also found it fascinating that they though of calories back then. I might have guessed that it was a more modern concept.
Our food is different, it’s all genetically modified now, so who knows what it’s really doing.