RESUMO
In the farm household of “vegetable planting by plastic green house”, “mandarin orange”, “rush (igusa)”, “dairy-farming” and “silk worm”, measurement of energy expenditure in agricultural work and analysis of daily working hours were conducted at the busy season of each crops. The results are as follows:<BR>The energy consumption per day are estimated respectively to be 3300 Cal for male and 2900 Cal for female in the household of the “plastic green house”; 3500 and 2500 Cal in the “mandarin orange”, 3800 and 3600 Cal in the “rush”, 3300 and 2700 Cal in the “dairy-farming”, 3400 and 2700 Cal in the “silk worm”.<BR>The agricultural machines and tools are mainly operated by male and so attached muscular works not yet machanized are carried by female. And management of animals or crops specially required prudent care have a tendency to be also carried by female. Then the average relative metabolic rate (RMR) a working day is relatively higher in female than male, except “mandarin orange”.<BR>In the “rush harvesting” and “dairy-farming”, having the most development of the agricultural mechanization it seems obviousely to be rising the labor efficiency, but because of expansion of management scale and decreasing number of employee the reduction of work load for a worker is not necessory obvious.
RESUMO
Mass health survey was conducted to discuss the relationship between obesity and some factors of agricultural managements and living and working conditions among 349 pairs of housewives and their husbands selected from the rural communities in Kumamoto prefecture.<BR>The prevalence rates of obesity (20% over of the Minowa's standard weights) were 13.1% for housewives of farmers, 13.7% for their husbands and 15.6 % for housewives of non-farmers, 9.2% for their husbands. The significant correlationship was found in the degree of obesity by Minowa's standard between housewives and their husbands (r= 0.1566, P<0.05).<BR>Being compared the prevalence of obesity according with the kinds of each household's producting crops, peoples of the household of “shiitake: cortinellus shiitake”, “vegetables by plastic greenhouse”, “tabacco” and “animal husbandary ” were more likely to be obese and, inversely, those of “barley”, “vegetables in upland” and “sericulture” were less, than those of “rice”, “mandarin orange” and “forestry”. In the household of “vegetables by plastic greenhouse”, “rice”, “barley”, “mandarin orange” and “vegetables in upland” husbands were more obese than housewives and, inversely, in the household of “shiitake” and “forestry” housewives were more obese than husbands.<BR>Peoples of fishing households were less likely to be obese than those of the farm households and/or other profession. Among the households of non-farmers it was noteworthy that higher prevalence rates of obesity were found in housewives than husbands, being inverse finding in the farmers case.<BR>The results suggested that the agricultural management and it's labor conditions, as well as the level of agricultural economics, might strongly affect the occurrence of obesity in the Japanese rural community.