Research overview: obesity and inactivity in indoor cats

Indoor lifestyles, while safer, are associated with reduced activity and elevated obesity risk in cats, a major welfare and health concern. This overview surveys research linking confinement, free feeding, neutering and limited enrichment to weight gain, and the downstream consequences including diabetes mellitus, joint disease and shortened lifespan. It examines studies of feeding strategies, activity promotion through play and foraging devices, and environmental design that encourages movement, as well as the role of owner behaviour in portion control and exercise. The survey discusses how the predatory and foraging behaviour cats would normally use to obtain food is short-circuited by bowl feeding, and how restoring elements of that effort through puzzles and play can help manage weight, framing obesity prevention as central to indoor cat welfare.