How Much Activity Do People Need to Prevent Weight Gain?
Weight gain during adulthood can increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic conditions.
Since it’s so hard for people to lose weight and keep it off, it’s better to prevent weight gain in the first place.
Encouragingly, there’s strong evidence to show that staying active can help people slow down or prevent “middle-age spread”. The more active people are, the more likely they are to keep their weight steady; However, the more sedentary, the more likely they are to gain weight over time.
But it’s still a matter of debate as to exactly how much activity people need to avoid weight gain. The latest evidence suggests that the recommended two and a half hours a week may not be enough.
A specific study by the “The Women’s Health Study” followed 34,000 middle-aged women for 13 years. They did this to see how much physical activity they needed to stay within 5 pounds of what they weighed at the start of the study. This research found that women, in the normal weight range, at the start of the study needed the equivalent of an hour a day of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity to maintain a steady weight.
For example – Vigorous activities seem to be more effective for weight control than slow walking.
Another study – “The Nurses’ Health Study II”, followed more than 18,000 women for 16 years. This study showed the relationship between changes in physical activity and weight.
Although women gained, on average, about 20 pounds over the course of the study, those who increased their physical activity by 30 minutes per day gained less weight than women whose activity levels stayed steady.
The type of activity made a difference: For example – Bicycle riding and brisk walking helped women avoid weight gain, but slow walking did not.
How Much Activity Do People Need to Lose Weight?
Exercise can help promote weight loss, but it seems to work best when combined with a lower calorie eating plan.
If people don’t curb their calories, they are likely to need to exercise for long periods of time-or at a high intensity-to lose weight.
In one study, as an example, researchers randomly assigned 175 overweight, inactive adults to one of either a control group that did not receive any exercise instruction or to one of three exercise regimens. The regimes were either a low intensity, medium intensity, or high intensity group.
The low intensity group included an equivalent to walking 12 miles/week, the medium intensity group included an equivalent to jogging 12 miles/week, while the high intensity group included an equivalent to jogging 20 miles per week.
All study volunteers were asked to stick to their usual diets. After six months, those assigned to the high-intensity regimen lost abdominal fat, whereas those assigned to the low- and medium-intensity exercise regimens had no change in abdominal fat.
More recently, researchers conducted a similar trial with 320 post-menopausal women. Each woman was randomly assigning to either a 45 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous aerobic activity, five days a week, or to a control group.
Most of the women were overweight or obese at the start of the study. After one year of following a plan, the exercisers had significant decreases in body weight, body fat, and abdominal fat, compared to the non-exercisers.
How Does Activity Prevent Obesity?
Researchers believe that physical activity prevents obesity in multiple ways:
- Physical activity increases people’s total energy expenditure, which can help them stay in balance or even lose weight, provided they don’t eat more to compensate for the extra calories they burn.
- Physical activity decreases fat around the waist and total body fat, slowing the development of abdominal obesity.
- Activities such as weightlifting, push-ups, and other muscle-strengthening activities help to build muscle mass. This helps by increasing the energy or calories that the body burns throughout the day, even when it’s at rest. This makes it easier to control weight.
Physical activity also reduces depression and anxiety. This mood boost may motivate people to stick with their exercise regimens over time.
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