Fit or Fat: Are They Mutually Exclusive? JAMA Says No!
January 10, 2008 by Kristen King
Filed under Women's Health
Despite evidence to the contrary, most people assume that if you’re at a healthy weight, that means you’re physically fit. But I’m here to tell you that it’s simply not true. There are lots of women out there who may be “fat” but in phenomenal physical condition, and lots of skinny and average chicks (like me!) who can’t make it up a flight of stairs without getting short of breath.
An article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in December 2007 concludes that this is abundantly true, stating in the article abstract:
Results …The association between waist circumference and mortality persisted after further adjustment for smoking, baseline health status, and BMI (P = .02) but not after additional adjustment for fitness (P = .86). Fitness predicted mortality risk after further adjustment for smoking, baseline health, and either BMI, waist circumference, or percent body fat (P < .001 for trend).
Conclusion …In this study population, fitness was a significant mortality predictor in older adults, independent of overall or abdominal adiposity. Clinicians should consider the importance of preserving functional capacity by recommending regular physical activity for older individuals, normal-weight and overweight alike.
Lively Women Translation: Overweight people had more health risks compared with healthy-weight people when all characteristics were the same EXCEPT for fitness. Improved physical fitness yielded better results for overweight people compared with their sedentary, healthy-weight counterparts when all othe factors were identical. In other words, no matter what your weight is, you will benefit from physical activity, and people who exercise regularly are healthier than those who don’t, regardless of weight.
Do you feel that overweight people can be physically fit and that healthy-weight people can be physically unfit? Leave a comment!
(hat tip – Time for Exercise)
Contents © Copyright 2008 Kristen King
Tags: womens health, woman, health, weight, physically fit, overweight, healthy weight, fit or fat, JAMA
