Objective: This study was aimed at performing a comparative analysis of undergraduates' calorie output during folk-dancing and walking.
Materials and methods: This was a descriptive study of the calorific output of 35 volunteer students belonging to the Universidade Estadual do Piauí's Dance Company (Teresina, Brazil) ranging in age from 19 to 34, including people from both genders allocated to two groups (dancers and walkers). A Filizola balance was used for estimating body mass, a Sanny metric scale for measuring height and a Caltrac accelerometer 100/100 Plan for measuring energy output. Student t-test and Pearson's correlation were used for statistical analysis (p<0.05 significance level) when comparing results.
Results: The results revealed no significant differences between the two undergraduate groups according to duration of activity. Such finding strongly indicates that motivation and dominating the technique (being contrasting elements in the two groups studied) compensated for calorie output, thereby explaining the absence of significant differences.
Conclusions: Dancing was seen to be equal to walking as physical activities in terms of calorific output. A significant correlation was found between calorie output levels in both dancing and walking (even though no significant differences between them were verified).