SEASONAL CHANGES IN ENERGY EXPENDITURE AND WORK PATTERNS OF RURAL GUATEMALAN WOMEN

In a rural Guatemalan agricultural cooperative, Cacahuito, a longitudinal study of women's work was carried out. Time and motion observations, respirometric measurements, and heart rate monitoring were used to determine the energy expenditures of 18 women aged 20-31 years. All subjects had preschool children and lived with a spouse. Ancillary data on dietary intake, anthropometry, weekly patterns of non-domestic activities, and morbidity helped determine yearly activities patterns and influence of environmental factors on those patterns.; No seasonal changes were noted in energy expenditure (1985 (+OR-) 194 kcal/day or 40.7 (+OR-) 2.7 kcal/kg/day), intake (1792 (+OR-) 492 kcal/day), or body weight (47.4 (+OR-) 4.2 kg.). Pregnant women were found to expend more energy than lactating women (2044 (+OR-) 158 kcal/day and 1821 (+OR-) 120 kcal/day, respectively, not including energy losses in breastmilk) but this was not true when the values were corrected for body weight. When women left home to work they expended more energy per kilogram body weight than when they stayed home (43.0 (+OR-) 3.6 kcal/mg/day and 39.7 (+OR-) 1.8 kcal/kg/day, respectively).; Daily activities patterns varied little seasonally, except for childcare which demanded less of women's work day time during the harvest season. A shift from resting activities to breastfeeding was the only difference noted between pregnant and lactating women's activities patterns. Significantly decreased time spent in food handling, household maintenance, and resting was coupled with increased time allocated to walking and agricultural activities on those days when women went out to work. Notably, time devoted to childcare and breastfeeding was not diminished when the women left home to work.; The number of trips taken to work outside the village increased significantly during the harvest season.; A community-wide survey showed that middle-aged women participated more in and earned more income from non-domestic activities than women under 30 or older than 60 and women's income was positively related to the number of children aged 6 to 14 years in the house.; The women in the study of energy expenditure participated less in non-domestic activities than the rest of the women in the village and therefore it is assumed that the energy expenditure measured in this study is low for this population of women.; Social factors played a large role in determining which women worked and how they earned their money. Many women challenged social dictates by working in the fields.; Two innovative methods used for estimating women's energy expenditure were developed and tested: the Bolfi Bag, a modified Douglas bag, and estimation of heart rates and thereby energy expenditure from counting heart beats for 30 seconds every 5 minutes.; The new methods were found to be as precise as the more traditional techniques and better suited to field work measuring rural peasant women in the tropics.