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American Morning

The Big Question: Can You Actually Burn Calories Doing Housework?

Aired May 15, 2002 - 08:50   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Time now for the big question, can you actually burn calories doing housework? Well, a new study says, stop fooling yourself, you're not going to lose any weight or improve your health by vacuuming the living room, so drop the mop and get out there and exercise.

CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now from Atlanta to explain.

I can't even believe someone sanctioned a study on this, doctor.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I know, well, they're actually looking at physical activity and trying to determine what actually is physical activity, and no question, house work is hard work and it's time consuming, but what they found was, it did not shed pounds, and did not make for better health.

The study actually was out of Britain, and looked at women from the ages of 60 to 78, and they looked at specific things, such as all different types of activities, including heavy housework, and they said while it counts as physical activity, it didn't really accomplish some of those health goals.

Let's back up and look at some of the housework calorie claims as a start. There are claims about how many calories housework will burn. Scrubbing a floor for an hour, for example, 384 calories. Window washing, 316. Vacuuming, 176. Bed making, 140. Paula, one thing about all those things, is that is sustained activity for an hour, and it's very hard, as you know, to make beds for an hour, to do any of those things for an hour.

Unless you do something in a consistent fashion, unless you get the activity sustained, you're not going to raise your pulse rate, you're not going to get some of the cardiovascular benefits, and therefore, not some of the health benefits and that may be the reason why housework doesn't count as much as some of the other things do.

ZAHN: Yes, but it still has to be better than lying around on a sofa, you know, stuffing your face with potato chips. You know, even if you scrub the floor for 30 minutes, that's 150 calories. It takes a while to burn that on a Stairmaster.

GUPTA: That's right, and probably doing housework is better than doing nothing. That is one of the very issues that we asked as well.

But if you really want to get the best sort of activity, you know, the CDC and a lot of different health organizations recommend 30 minutes of activity, sustained activity every day. So getting out there and walking half an hour a day or doing something would probably be even better than doing the housework alone.

So I guess what the point of the study is, don't rely on the housework alone to count as your physical activity. If you want to be fit, if your health is important to you, you probably need to get out there and do something else, as well.

ZAHN: Too bad there isn't a strong physical reward for all the hard work that gets done in the nation's households every day.

GUPTA: I talked to my mom about this, and she said she doesn't agree with the study, she's going to continue to do her housework and she that's just fine.

ZAHN: She probably says, I'm fit, and I am fit because I do all this nasty work around the house.

Thanks, doctor.

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