Burning Off Calories by Walking

Prepared by:

Joseph Malkevitch
Department of Mathematics and Computer Studies
York College (CUNY)
Jamaica, New York

email:

malkevitch@york.cuny.edu

web page:

http://york.cuny.edu/~malk

The following table was obtained (January, 2014) from the web site:

http://walking.about.com/cs/howtoloseweight/a/howcalburn.htm


Question 1

a. Fix one of the rows and discuss what pattern(s) you notice as the column changes.

b. Had you chosen a different row, would you have seen the same pattern?

Question 2

a. Fix one of the columns and discuss what pattern(s) you notice as the column changes:

b. Had you chosen a different column, would you have seen the same pattern?

Question 3

What type of function might fit this data?

Question 4

What "biological" issues might you use to explain the data in the table?

Question 5

The chart below is a portion of the one available at:

transportation.stanford.edu/pdf/caloriecalc_walk.pdf

The rows of this table give weight in pounds and the entries of the table give calories burned per minute of walking.

Answer the questions above for this table. Does this table and the prior table report the same information? What information seems not to be provided for this table? What are the "variables" that you think are involved in designing a "good" mathematical model of calories burned by walking?