Fidgeting Helps Separate the Lean From the Obese, Study Finds

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By Rob Stein

Strolling to the bus stop, fidgeting during a meeting, standing up to

stretch, jumping off the couch to change channels, and engaging in other

minor physical activities can make the difference between being lean and

obese, researchers reported yesterday.

The most detailed study ever conducted of mundane bodily movements found

that obese people tend to be much less fidgety than lean people and spend at

least two hours more each day just sitting still. The extra motion by lean

people is enough to burn about 350 extra calories a day, which could add up

to 10 to 30 pounds a year, the researchers found.

" There are these absolutely staggering differences between people who are

lean and people who are obese, " said A. Levine of the Mayo Clinic, who

led the research published in today's issue of the journal Science. " The

amount of this low-grade activity is so substantial that it could, in and of

itself, account for obesity quite easily. "

Perhaps more importantly, Levine and his colleagues also discovered that

people appear to be born with a propensity to be either fidgety or listless,

indicating that it would take special measures to convert the naturally

sedentary into the restless -- especially in a society geared toward a

couch-potato existence.

" Some may say this is a story of doom and gloom -- that people with obesity

have no choice. It's all over. I would argue exactly the opposite, " Levine

said. " There's a massive beacon of hope here. But it's going to take a

massive, top-down approach to change the environment in which we live to get

us up and be lean again. "

Other researchers agreed, saying the new study, while small, provides

powerful new evidence that a major cause of the obesity epidemic is the

pattern of desk jobs, car pools, suburban sprawl, and other environmental

and lifestyle factors that discourage physical activity. And despite

generations of parents' admonitions to the contrary, people should be

encouraged to be fidgety.

" Figuring out ways to increase physical activity -- not necessarily getting

people jogging every day but just building physical activity into a person's

day -- are reasonable strategies that have the promise to combat this

epidemic of obesity, " said Dietz of the Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention in Atlanta.

The number of Americans who are overweight has risen dramatically in recent

years, with more than two-thirds now overweight or obese, raising the

prospect of an epidemic of heart disease, diabetes and other weight-related

ills. The reason for this is a subject of intense debate, with many experts

blaming a combination of too much junk food and too little exercise.

Levine and others have done earlier studies suggesting a dearth of routine

activity may be part of the problem, but the new study is the most

exhaustive to date.

" We all know people who can't seem to stand still and others who hardly

move, " said Ravussin of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in

Baton Rouge, La., who wrote a commentary on the study. " This is really the

first time this has been assessed in this level of detail. "

For the study, Levine and his colleagues developed a system that can detect

the smallest tap of a toe -- high-tech underwear resembling bicycle pants

and sports bras or T-shirts embedded with sensors, originally designed for

fighter jets, that take measurements every half-second.

Ten men and 10 women, half of them lean and the other half mildly obese,

wore the garments 24 hours a day for 10 days as they went about their usual

routines. They went to the Mayo Clinic every morning to be weighed, get new

undergarments so researchers could download data from the previous day's

undergarments, and get meals for the day, so the researchers knew what they

were eating. All considered themselves " couch potatoes " because they

eschewed regular exercise.

Based on millions of bits of data, the researchers determined that each

day, the lean subjects spent at least 150 more minutes moving in some way

than the obese subjects.

Next, the researchers overfed nine of the lean subjects and put seven of

the obese subjects on diets to see if losing weight would make the obese

more fidgety, or if gaining weight would make the lean less active. They

then monitored them for another 10 days.

" It could be the obesity was making the difference -- not the other way

around. We thought, 'Well, in that case if they lost weight they'd start

standing more, and surely then if they got heavier they'd gravitate to their

chairs more,' " Levine said. " Neither of these things happened. The obese

person remained a sitter, and the lean person remained a stander. "

Other research has indicated that some people may be born predisposed to

moving whereas others are born predisposed to sitting.

" There may be brain chemicals driving obese people into their chairs or

driving lean people out of them, " Levine said.

As society and technology have made it easier for sitters to sit, that

inclination has been exaggerated, which could help explain a large part of

the obesity problem, Levine and others said.

" We all know what it's like to like and dislike different things. . . .

Since the environment has become more and more friendly to being sedentary,

people with that predisposition to respond to those cues are likely to

become obese, " Levine said.

The findings should encourage efforts to create an environment that makes

it easier for people to get moving, he said. In the meantime, individuals

should be encouraged to move more on their own.

" We can begin to say to people, 'Yes, it would be good if you went jogging,

and it would be good if you went to the gym. But it's also good to keep

getting up, moving around.' Fidgeting and doing all those small things will

make a difference, " said Trayhurn of the University of Liverpool in

England.