Fit And Fat Not Good Enough

Excess weight can take years off your life despite exercise.

Being fit but fat isn’t good enough. Excess weight, all by itself, can take years off your life, even if you get plenty of exercise, a study found.

"There has been some suggestion that if you are particularly active, you don’t have to worry about your body weight, about your diet. That’s very misleading," said the report’s lead author, Dr. Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health.

The study of 116,500 women was based on questionnaires used in the Nurses’ Health Study, which has followed female nurses since 1976, and on death certificates and medical records.

Women who were physically active but obese had almost twice the risk of death of women were both active and lean. Women who were sedentary but slender were 55 percent more likely to die. Women who were both sedentary and obese were almost 2 1/2 times more likely to die.

Lean women who exercised less than 3-1/2 hours per week increased their risk of early death by 55 percent compared to women who worked out more frequently, the researchers found. Among obese women who worked out for at least 3-1/2 hours weekly, the death rate was 91 percent higher than in lean women who exercised for 3-1/2 hours weekly. And for inactive, obese women, the premature death rate was 142 percent greater.

The Hu team estimated that not being lean and not getting enough exercise could account for 31 percent of all premature deaths, 59 percent of deaths from cardiovascular disease, and 21 percent of deaths from cancer among women who do not smoke.
"Being physically active did not cancel out the increased mortality of overweight. Being lean did not counterbalance the risk effect of being sedentary," Hu said.

An editorial by David R. Jacobs Jr. and Mark A. Pereira of the University of Minnesota noted that the study relied on nurses’ reports of exercise and weight rather than direct measurement, and did not include light to moderate exercise — the form most Americans get.

Dr. Timothy Church of the Cooper Institute, which is devoted to research on exercise and health, praised the findings. "If you’re lean but you’re sedentary, don’t fool yourself. You’re still at risk. You need to get physically active," he said.
New England Journal of Medicine Dec 23, 2004

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DID YOU KNOW:
Fast-Food Chains Giving Free Health Club Memberships
One of America’s largest fast-food chains is offering its customers a helping hand in fulfilling their New Year’s resolutions.

Devotees of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken are to be offered free gym membership in January. Parent company Yum Brands says anyone visiting these outlets next month will get a four week health club membership.
Fast-food operators have been under pressure to repel the charge that they are feeding an obesity epidemic. They have responded by offering a wider choice of options for the health-conscious.

Yum operates 18,000 restaurants in the United States. Its customers will be able to choose from 400 health clubs run by Bally Total Fitness.