The exercise is about so much plus than weight loss, but in a world where obesity is so strongly associated with poor health, it’s hard not to make losing weight the primary goal.
A new editorial of three American cardiologists explains why it is such a big mistake.
Even if visceral fat is not burned, emerging evidence suggests that physical activity can still improve the health and fitness of our hearts, thereby prolonging our lives.
When it comes to improving your health, cardiologists Carl Lavie, Robert Ross and Ian Neeland argue that simply increasing the amount of physical activity is more important than focusing on weight loss.
The argument is controversial and will no doubt provoke further debate, but the authors clearly state their supporting evidence.
In particular, cardiologists focus on a to study published in the International Journal of Obesity in August that found that measures of exercise are much better predictors of long-term health than a person’s body mass index or body fat content.
Among 116,228 adults, this study found that increased physical activity essentially eliminated most of the risk of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular-related deaths over the next 12 years.
This was true even if an individual’s waist circumference increased over the same period.
“This is a finding that is entirely consistent with numerous observations showing that exercise is associated with benefits across a wide range of health outcomes in association with little or no weight loss,” the cardiologists said. write in your editorial.
“However, considerable evidence suggests that a monolithic focus on weight loss as the sole determinant of the success of strategies aimed at reducing obesity is not warranted and, more importantly, eliminates opportunities to target other behaviors.” potentially important lifestyle factors that are associated with substantial health. Benefits.”
In other words, doctors may be failing patients by putting too much emphasis on weight loss and not enough on decreasing sedentary behaviors.
Although the authors of the editorial to recognize the “considerable and unequivocal evidence” that obesity is a health risk factor, they also point to a “obesity paradox“, where obesity is sometimes associated with a lower risk of mortality.
In recent years, scientists from various fields have criticized modern medicine’s narrow view of obesity.
Last year, a 2021 revision by two exercise physiologists advocated “a weight-neutral strategy” for the treatment of obesity.
Even when weight loss is not achieved, the 2021 review found that exercise can improve most cardiometabolic risk markers associated with obesity. Meanwhile, weight loss was not consistently associated with a lower mortality risk.
In fact, a recent to study among 10,000 patients with heart disease, it found that those with better cardiorespiratory fitness were more likely to survive the next 15 years, regardless of their BMI, body fat, or waist circumference.
“The finding that obesity and related health risks can be greatly reduced by adopting a physically active lifestyle and a healthy diet, even in the presence of minimal weight loss, is encouraging and provides the physician and overweight/obese adult additional options for successful treatment”, the new editorial argues.
The authors of the editorial have also investigated the matter. For example, they mention an analysis by Lavie made in 2018 which found that changes in physical activity were a better predictor of both all-cause mortality and mortality from cardiovascular disease specifically. Meanwhile, weight loss showed no such reduction in risk.
Evidence is accumulating to suggest that the relationship between physical activity, heart health, and fat loss is not as straightforward as many of us have been led to believe.
If a human being is active enough, some experts to think they should be considered healthy regardless of their weight.
Given how inconsistent weight loss and gain can be, these recent findings put more power in people’s hands.
If you want to feel fit and healthy, you may just need to get moving.
The editorial was published in the International Journal of Obesity.
