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New Study: Increase Gym
Time with Age
Rev up the treadmill: Sobering new research spells out
just how much exercise women need to keep the flab off as
they age---and it’s a lot.
At least an hour of moderate activity a day is needed for
older women at a healthy weight who aren’t dieting. For
those already overweight—and that is most American
women—even more exercise is called for to avoid gaining
weight without eating less, the study results suggest.
“We all have to work at it. If it were easy to be skinny,
we would all be skinny,” said John Foreyt, a behavioral
medicine expert who reviewed the study but wasn’t involved
in the research.
Brisk walking, leisurely bicycling and golfing are all
examples of moderate exercise. But don’t throw in the
towel if you can’t do those things for at least an hour a
day. Even a little exercise is good for our health even if
it won’t make you thin, according the researchers. Their
findings are based on 34,079 middle-aged women followed
for about 13 years. Most were not on calorie-cutting
diets. The women gained an average of almost 6 pounds
during the study.
Those who started out at a healthy weight, with a body
mass index less than 25, and who gained little or no
weight during the study consistently got the equivalent of
about an hour of moderate activity daily. Few women—only
13 percent—were in this category.
Few already overweight women got that amount of exercise,
and the results suggest it wasn’t enough to stop them from
gaining weight. The results echo what gymfuls of
middle-aged American women see every time they step off
the treadmill and onto the scale.
“Talk to any group of women and they all say the same
thing,” said Janet Katzin, 61, a “slightly overweight”
marketing director from Long Island who exercises for an
hour twice a week. Thin as a younger adult, Katzin said
the pounds started creeping up after she had her two
children in the late 1980’, despite exercising and
watching what she eats. “It’s just extremely frustrating
and discouraging.”
The study appears in today’s Journal of the American
Medical Association. Only women were studied, so the
researchers from Harvard’s Brigham and Women Hospital said
it is uncertain whether the results would apply to men.
The research’ reinforces in a nice, clear way the idea of
how difficult it is to maintain a healthy weight in our
society,” said Foreyt, of the Baylor College of medicine
in Texas.
The results bolster a 2002 Institute of Medicine report
that emphasized the importance of balancing diet and
exercise and recommended at least 60 minutes daily of
moderate activity for adults an children. But the study
also indicates that the 2008 U.S. guidelines urging about
a half-hour of exercise five days a week won’t stop weight
gain while getting older without cutting calories, said
Dr. I-Min Lee, the study’s lead author.
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