On Healthy Living

I am overweight and have battled weight issues all of my life. But I have not had my head buried in the sand and am not one of these overweight activists who believes that you can be heavy and healthy. It’s just not a reasonable defense.

Over the years, and especially over the past five years, “fat” activists have been popping up all over the place declaring that you can be active and overweight and still be healthy. Well, a new study by the researchers at Harvard that was published yesterday in Internal Medicine puts this argument to rest (hopefully).

While the study found that overweight women who are active have a decreased risk of heart disease over those overweight women who are inactive, their risk of heart disease is still high compared to that of healthy-weight active women. Women were considered active if they followed government-recommended guidelines and got at least 30 minutes of moderate activity most days of the week, including brisk walking or jogging. Women who got less exercise than that were considered inactive.

The study found that active overweight women with a BMI (Body Mass Index) of 25 - 29 had a 54% higher risk of developing heart disease compared to that of active healthy weight women. Active obese women (with a BMI of 30 and higher) had a 87% higher risk of developing heart disease over that of healthy weight women who are active.

Here is where the benefits of exercise really shows. Check out these statistics…

For overweight inactive women, the risk of heart disease increased by 88%; for inactive obese women the risk was 2 1/2 times higher.

ff wrote this on April 29th, 2008 and filed it under Healthy Living, Diet & Exercise, Women's Health |