Housework not good exercise, says study
Medium (British English)
Medium (N. American English)
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READING:
A new study suggests housework is not the quality form of exercise many people consider it to be. The report even went as far as saying that those who did the most housework were usually those most overweight. The study is called, "Does doing housework keep you healthy? The contribution of domestic physical activity to meeting current recommendations for health". It questions whether physical activities such as do-it-yourself, gardening and housework are such good exercise. It acknowledges that any activity is better than none, but says, "there is a danger that those undertaking domestic 'chores' may assume that this activity is moderate intensity" and wrongly count it as proper exercise.
A total of 4,563 adults participated in the survey, which was based on participants' weekly physical activity. The analysis from this research showed that people who included housework as part of their weekly exercise tended to be heavier. Research leader professor Marie Murphy said: "Housework is physical activity and any physical activity should theoretically increase the amount of calories [burnt]. But we found that housework was inversely related to leanness, which suggests that either people are overestimating the amount of moderate intensity physical activity they do through housework, or are eating too much to compensate for the amount of activity undertaken."
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