New research has just driven a dagger into the heart of the mentality that you can be “fat but fit”.
Physical activity does nothing to cancel out the harmful effects of excess body weight on cardiovascular health, according to a bombastic study published Thursday in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology.
The results contradict previous studies that concluded that maintaining physical activity can decrease the effects of extra body weight on heart health.
“You can’t be ‘fat, but healthy’,” said the study’s author, Alejandro Lucia, professor of exercise physiology at the European University of Madrid.
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“You can’t be ‘fat, but healthy’,” said the study’s author, Alejandro Lucia, professor of exercise physiology at the European University of Madrid. “This was the first national analysis to show that being regularly active is unlikely to eliminate the damaging health effects of excess body fat. Our findings refute the notion that a physically active lifestyle can completely negate the deleterious effects of overweight and obesity. obesity.”
Lucia cites previous research that suggested, in adults and children, a “fat but fit” lifestyle could have cardiovascular health similar to those that are “thin, but inadequate” – and adds that this has diverted people from the real priority.
“This has generated controversial proposals for health policies for [prioritize] “Physical activity and fitness over weight loss,” he said. “Our study sought to clarify the links between activity, body weight and heart health.”
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This study collected data from 527,662 Spanish adult workers, all insured by a large occupational risk prevention company. Thirty-two percent of the participants were women; The average age was 42 years.
They were categorized by activity level and body weight – with about 42% classified as normal weight with a body mass index (BMI) of 20 to 24.9. Approximately 41 percent were overweight, with a BMI of 25 to 29.9, while 18 percent were considered obese, with a BMI of 30 or more. The majority of the study group, more than 63 percent, were physically inactive. About 24 percent were regularly active and just over 12 percent were considered insufficiently active.
The research team then examined the associations between BMI, level of physical activity and high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes – all three carry great risks of heart attack and stroke.
They found that in all BMI measurements, any physical activity was associated with a lower likelihood of diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure when compared to no exercise.
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“This tells us that everyone, regardless of body weight, must be physically active to protect their health,” said Lúcia.
So, yes, being active is important. But size still matters.
Regardless of activity levels, overweight and obese participants faced greater cardiovascular risks than those with normal body weight. When compared to inactive adults with normal weight, physically active obese people were still twice as likely to have high cholesterol, four times as likely to have diabetes and five times as likely to have high blood pressure.
“Exercise does not seem to offset the negative effects of being overweight,” he added. “This discovery was also seen in general in men and women when they were [analyzed] separately.”
Lucia concluded that obesity and inactivity must be combated.
“It must be a joint battle,” he said. “Weight loss should continue to be the main objective of health policies, along with promoting active lifestyles.”
However, the study makes no mention or dietary recommendations – and when it comes to an example of physical activity, Lúcia said that “walking 30 minutes a day is better than walking 15 minutes a day”.
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Sean Heffron, MD, a cardiologist at the Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Center at NYU Langone Health, stressed that obesity is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease – as well as insufficient physical activity – but weight loss requires a two-part formula.
“Exercise itself is not the type of way to lose weight,” he said. “It’s complementary to having an ideal body weight”, but improving your diet is the other piece of the puzzle.
This content originally appeared in The New York Post.