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Stop tapping your pencil! my teacher called out. I didn't. And one day he walked up to my desk, threw me to the front of the class, then tossed me out of the classroom. Now, a study at the University of Missouri, shows that fidgeting has health benefits!

And have you heard of "magic underwear"?







So, does this mean you should keep moving, shopping until you drop, tapping your toes or being a little twitchy? Levine says you don't have to put on jogging shoes. Rather, he recommends "ambulation", a term meaning ambling around in a variety of ways during the day which burns more calories for most people than jogging.

How much energy do we need to burn every day? Levine says we cannot change our basal metabolic weight that accounts for 60% of our energy. We need this amount just to keep our organs functioning. We require another 10% of calories to absorb, digest and store food. So we're left with 30% that should be expended.

Levine agrees we should usually save for a rainy day. But this is one situation where we should spend, spend, spend. If you stay in bed all day this 30% remainder will be stored as fat.

Levine admits that you can go to the gym and get rid of this excess energy. But he claims that "most people don't like going to the gym and don't go even if they do like it." Moreover, it takes time to get to the gym, time to change, and then 30 minutes on the bike only burns 100 calories.


The Mayo Clinic shares Levine's enthusiasm for getting people mobile. It now employs "Mobilologists" to train people to increase their physical activity. So they now have "Walk and Talk meetings." They are also designing offices and furniture that encourage people to move and reverse a lethal tendency to inactivity.




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