Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) is any physical activity, which is not a workout, related to daily life such as walking, doing professional work, housework, social activities such as dancing.
In addition to NEAT, is there an alternative?
The crucial importance of regular physical activity for maintaining health and a healthy weight is obvious.
What continually sparks debate is the most optimal ratio of purposeful exercise-related activity, termed TEA, and spontaneous activity NEAT.
Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) is any non-exercise physical activity related to everyday life such as walking, doing work, housework, social activities such as dancing.
TEA and NEAT are elements of total energy expenditure TDEE (total calories burned) during the day. It is worth noting that in most people (apart from particularly physically intensive people and athletes), they do not represent the largest energy expenditure. It is usually the basal metabolic rate (BMR).
How about NEAT alone, if in the Blue Zone it was enough?
Proponents of NEAT as a key and sufficient form of physical activity cite, as one argument, the habits of people living in so-called Blue Zones. These are areas in the world famous for the longevity of their inhabitants such as the island of Okinawa (Japan), the island of Sardinia, the Nicoya peninsula (Costa Rica); the island of Ikaria ( Greece) and the city of Loma Linda (California).
Despite significant cultural differences, there are many similarities in these populations (health of a predominantly plant-based diet, cherishing family traditions, performing daily chores until old age, etc.).
In these populations, longevity and a long healthy life is certainly not due to regular HIIT-type aerobic or resistance training in terms of hypertrophy or muscular endurance i.e. EAT training activity.
In terms of physical activity, the systematic and consistent spontaneous activity of NEAT over the years was definitely key. The vast majority of these are people who make their living by working with their own hands as farmers or ranchers. This activity according to modern terminology is low-intensity activity. Meanwhile, modern recommendations recommend min. 150 min, optimally 300 min of moderate to intense activity (and therefore more in line with EAT).
Why the discrepancy?
The undoubted advantage of NEAT activity for people with Blue Zones was certainly its absolute regularity. Undertaking it was never a matter of a New Year’s resolution but a compulsion conditioning subsistence and survival. A second advantage is that carrying out the daily chores of, for example, a farmer, forces one to move during each hour of activity, which reduces the time spent sitting.
The harm of sitting for hours on end is obvious. What is somehow debated is the question of how much of the health-promoting effect of physical activity is due to the movement itself, and how much to the interruption of immobility.
In practice, this may mean answering the question of whether it is more health-promoting to have an activity model of, for example, a hairdresser working for many hours in a standing position, without much interruption, but with low intensity, or the functioning of an IT specialist, spending many hours at the computer in a sitting position, and after hours systematically going to the gym for crossfit twice a week, and the other days running intervals in the field.
Faced with the obvious fact that very few people will be able to implement systematic NEAT in their own vineyard in Sardinia, the topic of the optimal form of activity has been taken up, among others, by Finnish researchers on a population coming from the northern part of that country ( and therefore excluding the possibility of growing vines :-)).
How can this be done in the conditions of modern society?
Using data from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 study (NFBC1966), which included people born in 1966, the results of lipogram (cholesterol, triglycerides), glucose and insulin – i.e. determinants of metabolic and cardiovascular disease – and various measures of overweight and obesity (BMI, body fat mass, waist circumference) were analysed according to the type of physical activity. Participants were equipped with accelerometers to record their every activity and the results were analysed in terms of time spent sitting, low-intensity activity and moderate-intensity activity.
Based on these results, participants were divided into 3 categories:
1. ‘active couch potatoes’ – little movement in either category, a lot of time sedentary;
2. ‘sedentary light movers’ – little moderate activity, a lot of light intensity and a lot of immobility – this could be the hairdresser in the example assuming he spends his after-work time in front of the TV;
3. “sedentary exercisers” – a lot of immobility, little light activity, most at least moderate activity – this would be the IT specialist from the example and “movers” ( little immobility, a lot of light activity and some moderate activity – e.g. the hairdresser on the assumption that after hours he works in his garden or exercises a little.
All 3 groups ( the IT specialist and both hairdressers) obviously scored significantly better on cardiometabolic risk factors than the ‘couch potatoes’, taken as a reference group. Much more interesting is which group achieved the greatest difference.
The best results were achieved by those in the ‘sedentary exercisers’ group (the group of IT professionals going to the gym and cross-country skiing) but by a slight margin over the ‘movers’ group (i.e. the hairdresser group, gardening after hours) – both in terms of cardiovascular risk factors and weight reduction.
What is the conclusion about NEAT?
For most of us, there is no going back to the idyllic lifestyle of Blue Zones people and their highly health-effective NEAT activity. However, this does not change the fact that adequate spontaneous activity is a minimum and necessary condition for maintaining health and weight.
If the nature of our work is not conducive to physical activity it is nevertheless worth seeking it out. Give up the armchair on pegs at work and walk up to the filing cabinet, not drive up (a chance to walk a few dozen metres and do a few “almost squats”), don’t look for the nearest car park by the office – maybe you should choose one further away and walk, don’t use the lift but take the stairs.
Add to that the habit of “snack-exercise” (classic NEAT!), i.e. a short movement after every hour of sitting, instead of a salty or sweet snack in a bowl at the monitor. In the perspective of weeks, months and years, this will certainly have a greater health-promoting effect than a ‘sporty’ ski trip once a year.
If, in spite of everything, basic NEAT activity remains suboptimal, it is worth thinking about short workouts at home, 20-30 minutes long, of at least moderate intensity in both the cardio and resistance training categories.
Maintaining pulmonary and cardiovascular fitness (usually measured in terms of maximum oxygen uptake – mVO2), as well as efficient muscles, not only increases energy expenditure as part of basal metabolism and thus ensures weight maintenance, but also reduces the risk of musculoskeletal diseases, which also plague older people who have avoided metabolic and cardiovascular diseases.
Appropriate and systematic physical activity, together with other lifestyle modifications, will certainly bring the Blue Zone closer to home.
Author: Dr Sławomir Powierża, cardiologist