Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) and Adiposity

Abstract

The human being is designed to walk. Over a miniscule, in genetic terms, period of time, a mere 200 years, human have been compressed into chairs. Education, work, and home environments promote sedentariness in susceptible people. In those individuals, non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) is suppressed and health is harmed. Overall the strength of the evidence regarding sedentary behaviour and obesity suggests that NEAT has declined with urbanization and modernization---in general, modern people living in cities and working in offices are sedentary. Low NEAT (sedentariness) is associated with lower daily energy expenditure than a person of similar size with high NEAT. A person who does not increase NEAT during a period of overfeeding is likely to gain greater adipose tissue than a high-NEAT responder and so people with obesity are more prone to low NEAT and sedentariness. It is clear that central mechanisms exist to regulate NEAT. Solutions exist to measure NEAT and reverse sedentariness in schools and workplaces. It is recommended that a comprehensive societal approach is necessary to reverse sedentariness in homes, schools, offices, and cities.