In praise of twitching
The Fit Tend to Fidget, reports the New York Times.
This is a great article. It's not everyday you learn about actigraphic underwear and find scientific vindication for twitchiness:
Overweight people have a tendency to sit, while lean ones have trouble holding still and spend two hours more a day on their feet, pacing around and fidgeting, researchers are reporting in findings published today.
The difference translates into about 350 calories a day, enough to produce a weight loss of 30 to 40 pounds in one year without trips to the gym - if only heavy people could act more restless, like thin ones.
The difference in activity levels may be biological and inborn, the researchers say, the result of genetically determined levels of brain chemicals that govern a person's tendency to move around. It is the predisposition to be inactive that leads to obesity, and not the other way around, they suggest.
The findings, being published today in the journal Science, are from a study in which researchers at the Mayo Clinic outfitted 10 lean men and women and 10 slightly obese ones - all of whom described themselves as "couch potatoes" - with underwear carrying sensors that measured their body postures and movements every half second for 10 days on several occasions. By the end of the study, which required a staff of 150, the researchers had collected 25 million pieces of data on each participant.
Cool--empirical justification for one of my more annoying qualities!
Posted by: Scott Lemieux | January 29, 2005 at 12:01 AM
I'm heavy *and* twitchy. I need to loiter every so often, and definitely walk two hours a day or more. So you're saying I'd be even larger if I weren't this way? How depressing.
Posted by: Mandos | January 29, 2005 at 10:34 AM
Sounds like they need to replace the sensors with stimulators - to MAKE you twitchy. When I fidgeted my mother would ask if I had ants in my pants.
Posted by: Mike | January 29, 2005 at 01:01 PM
Your body gets used to exercising, so you feel that you need to exercise all the time.
Which is fine if you have a job that allows you just enough time to occasionally do push ups or the odd yogic exercise.
Manning a reception desk on your own turns into a bizarre game of hide and seek though.
"phones aren't ringing, no one's around and the cameras aren't watching me... Squat thrusts! one two..."
Posted by: R. Mildred | January 29, 2005 at 02:12 PM
As a confirmed twitcher, this is pleasing news indeed!
Posted by: Patrick Callioni | January 29, 2005 at 10:37 PM
I was going to be a computer programmer professionally, but was so non-plussed with the idea of sitting for a living that I joined the Marine Corps (thought "rifle-toting computer programmer" might be a better title).
I'm a computer programmer again.
Anyway, if a person has lots of backside padding, they will likely be more comfortable sitting for long periods in the first place.
Posted by: Josh Narins | January 30, 2005 at 03:07 PM