Fidgeting key to weight loss
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-01-29 11:33

Do you want to have a slim figure? Scientists suggest that ordinary movements have a more powerful effect on body shape than exercise because fidgeting can burn enough energy to make the difference between fat and thin.

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota, found that obese people with sedentary lifestyles appear to have a genetic inclination to sit around a lot.

On average, obese people spend two-and-a-half-hours more in a chair than their leaner peers and end up burning 350 fewer calories a day, according to the study published in the January 28 edition of the journal Science.

His team recruited 10 normal-weight and 10 obese men and women for their study, persuading them to wear special underwear with sensors that logged every move, however small.

They found the obese people spent, on average, more than two extra hours a day sitting still compared with the lean volunteers. That did not include sleeping time, which was the same between the two groups.

In the second phase of the study, the lean people were overfed by 1,000 calories a day to make them gain weight, while the fatter people were underfed by 1,000 daily calories.

But even after losing weight, the underfed obese group spent more time sitting and moved less than the overfed lean group.

Scientists said obese people have low NEAT, or non-exercise activity thermogenesis, "which means they have a biological need to sit more," said James Levine, a Mayo Clinic endocrinologist who led the study.

The discovery of the effects of NEAT on obesity should be used to prompt a "NEAT revolution" to curb obesity, the researchers said.

"This is entirely doable, because the kind of activity we are talking about does not require special or large spaces, unusual training regimens or gear," Levine said. "Unlike running a marathon, NEAT is within the reach of everyone."

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