People who count housework as exercise could be fooling themselves, research has suggested.

Including gardening, DIY, vacuuming or cleaning in a tally of weekly exercise may give people a false sense of how active they have been.

Until now, studies have suggested housework counts towards a weekly round-up of moderate activity.

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In a study published in the journal BMC Public Health, experts found that those who counted housework were actually heavier than people choosing other forms of exercise.

This may be due to them overestimating how active they are with housework, the experts said.