Does doing housework keep you healthy? The contribution of domestic physical activity to meeting current recommendations for health.

Abstract

Recent lifestyle approaches to physical activity have included the promotion of domestic physical activities such as do-it-yourself or home maintenance, gardening and housework. Although it is acknowledged that any activity is better than none, there is a danger that those undertaking domestic 'chores' may assume that this activity is moderate intensity and therefore counts towards this 150 minute per week target The purpose of this paper was to report the contribution domestic physical activity makes to total weekly physical activity and the relationship between domestic physical activity and leanness in the Northern Ireland population.