"Just Chill?" Relaxing Can Make You Fatter

It is all about Calories in vs. Calories out.

Conventional wisdom says that exercise is a key to weight loss - a no-brainer. But now, Tel Aviv University researchers are revealing that life as a couch potato, stretched out in front of the TV, can actually be "active inactivity" - and cause you to pack on the pounds.

Such inactivity actually encourages the body to create new fat in fat cells, says Prof. Amit Gefen of TAU's Department of Biomedical Engineering. Along with his Ph.D. student Naama Shoham, Prof. Gefen has shown that preadipocyte cells - the precursors to fat cells - turn into fat cells faster and produce even more fat when subject to prolonged periods of "mechanical stretching loads" - the kind of weight we put on our body tissues when we sit or lie down.

The rest is the minutiae and of remarkable unimportance.