You Gotta Move, Or Do You? More Work Is Needed

Is there a set amount of energy that you must burn off everyday? And is your “activitystat,” as that energy has been defined, yours alone, or does everyone have the same energy-burn requirement? These are the questions explored by Tara Parker-Pope in a recent Well column. And these are the answers: It looks that way. Sometimes. When researchers in England studied the amount of activity of school children in three schools with wildly different physical education requirements, they found that at the end of the day all of the school kids were equally active. Those who were required to do more exercise in school were less active at other times.  Another answer: Parker-Pope reports that a study published in the journal Menopause required a group of postmenopausal women to complete a 13-week walking program. Some of the women were more active over all than they had been at the start, but almost half had reduced their spontaneous physical activity when they weren’t exercising. Researchers concluded that their bodies had compensated for the walking and kept their overall energy expenditure stable. But wait. Other studies, Parker-Pope tells us, have found that environment does have “a massive influence on the level of physical activity,” and at least with children, levels of activity are defined by actions and attitudes of parents and teachers, rather than biology. The bottom line? “More work is needed.” In the mean time, You Gotta Move.