Abstract

BACKGROUND
Despite the importance of exercise, little is known about the epidemiology of exercise among persons with diabetes in the Korea. We do not have any standard method to evaluate physical activity of diabetics. So exercise committee of Korean diabetic association decided to survey the physical activities of Korean type 2 diabetic patients. METHODS: Cross-sectional study including 1073 type 2 diabetics (509 males, 564 females) over 18 age. 34 general hospitals collected data about physical activity from Dec. 2004 to Feb.2005. Data were randomly collected by interviewers using numeration table. Respondents were asked about the physical activities or exercise during recent 7 days and frequency, duration of each activity. To compare with normal population, we use 2001 KNHANES (Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) results. RESULTS: People with type 2 diabetes were more likely to report exercising regularly than people without this disease (52.5% vs. 27.5%) (p<0.0001), but 47.5% of type 2 diabetics didn't take exercise. Walking time of type 2 diabetics wasmore than that of people without this disease (p<0.0001). Type 2 diabetics exerting <700kcal/week of energy expenditure with physical activity were 45.5% in the exercising type 2 diabetics (males:44.2%, females:55.8%). Energy expenditure was positively correlated with frequency of physical exercise and exercise period (p<0.001). CONCLUSION: 47.5% of Korean type 2 diabetics and 72.5% of normal population did not take exercise. 45.5% of exercising type 2 diabetics exerted energy expenditure under 700kcal/week with physical activity. Therefore, various programs for initiating physical activity and increasing energy expenditure are required.

• Keywords: physical activity;energy expenditure;