O.T. - "fidgeting" in order to lose (note spelling) weight.
January 17, 1999
Sit Down. No, Stand Up. Have We Got News for You.
By JAMES BARRON
It's enough to get someone struggling to lose those all-important 20 pounds
lathered up into a frenzy, but come to think of it, a frenzy may be just
what the doctor ordered. Old-fashioned fidgeting -- tapping your pencil
against a conference table in a make-or-break meeting, jiggling your leg while
gabbing on the telephone, pacing back and forth until you wear a hole in the
carpet behind your desk -- may emerge as a new weight-control strategy.
That seems to be a major implication of a Mayo Clinic study, which fed 16
people 1,000 extra calories a day for eight weeks and then told them to simply
lounge around, have a good time -- and, most of all, refrain from strenuous
exercise. The researchers wanted an answer to a question that has been
voiced with equal parts anger and green-eyed envy by anyone who has
discovered that last year's suits do not fit this year's dimensions: Why can
some people eat anything and everything and not gain an ounce, while others
bulk up with every swallow?
The researchers were surprised to find that some people -- the fortunate ones,
they said -- work off the extra calories by fidgeting ("nonexercise activity
thermogenesis," nutritionists call it).
Clearly, the notion that something as painless as ordinary movements -- a
tensing of a muscle here, a run to the lavatory there -- can lead to weight loss
(or at least weight control) will open new horizons for the billion-dollar diet
industry.
Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York and spokesperson for Weight
Watchers, may face competition if Roadrunner (the hero of the Wile E.
Coyote cartoons) starts doing endorsements.
Bookstores, too, can profit by clearing away some of those no-pain, no-gain
books for the blockbuster literature of fidgeting. "There's an opportunity here
for me to become a fidget guru," said Lewis Grossberger, author of "The
Non-Runner's Book" (Collier, 1978). "I'm going to write a best-selling health
book called 'Fidget Your Way to Health' and tell you how to lose weight,
improve muscle tone and your sex life by fidgeting."
The realization that fidgeting is good may also force a fundamental change in
family dynamics -- after all, parents will no longer have to tell their children to
stop fidgeting at the dinner table.
Adults, too, can stop worrying about acting like worrywarts because of the
health benefits. (Here things get confusing, though. If they stop worrying,
they might gain weight.) How many calories does a shifty-eyed person use
glowering at everybody in sight? Is that how Richard M. Nixon kept fit during
the dark days of Watergate? Perhaps indoorsy types can skip the gym in favor
of a couple of practice golf swings during everyday conversations -- who
knew Johnny Carson had figured out the secret to a flat stomach?
But isn't fidgeting just another name for nervous energy? Apparently so. "Let's
be real," said Annette Hastings, director of nutrition at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital
Center. "If you are the kind of person who moves around a lot, you're going
to have higher calorie needs. This is plain old common sense. Surprise,
surprise."
Still, some researchers say there is food for serious thought in the fidgeting
findings. Karen Miller-Kovach, the lead scientist for Weight Watchers
International, said fidgeting "seems to be a personal characteristic that may
have some hereditary links, but it doesn't seem to be a habit that you can
form."
In other words, like charisma or sex appeal, you either have it or you don't.
"It's pretty much unconscious or subconscious movements, even down to the
people with nervous tics," she said. "That all takes energy to make those
muscles contract."
Ms. Miller-Kovach described studies where researchers computed calories
consumed by subjects in controlled environments. "The people who are
genetically or biologically predisposed to be couch potatoes sit on the bed and
read a book or whatever they do," she said. "The nervous-energy types are
touching their toes, cracking their knuckles, not sitting in one place for more
than a minute or two." (She is one of them. "I had my pencil going against my
leg" while describing the study, she said in a telephone interview.)
Other experts warn against expecting large, quick losses from adopting a daily
regimen of fidgeting. Annette Hastings, director of the Bronx-Lebanon
Hospital Center, calculated that fidgeting could add 5 to 10 percent to a man's
basic metabolic rate (the number of calories burned by doing nothing).
That works out to only 200 calories a day. Jogging or playing tennis would
burn that many in an hour. Still, she said, "over 365 days in a year, that's a lot
of calories."
Not willing to wait a year? Try a short-term calculation. "In 17 days you lose
a pound," she said, "if you're not eating to support the fidgeting."
Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company |
