Steven Blair, PED, professor of exercise science, epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of South Carolina
It's better than being thin and unfit.
Overweight people who exercise just 150 minutes a week have half the risk of mortality of normal-weight people who don't exercise at all, according to research I conducted. That's not true once you move from overweight (meaning a body mass index, or BMI, of 25 to 29.9) to obese (a BMI of 30 or more). But being fit and a little fat seems to be fine.
In one study, half of overweight adults and one-third of obese people who were active had normal blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood sugar, putting them at normal risk for heart disease and diabetes, which are both supposedly caused by weight.
Getting fit is more realistic than getting slim.
For most people, diets don't work in the long term. We ought to be thinking about different strategies. It's far easier for a fat person to get fit than thin.
You can't be obese and fit.
Unless you're in that tiny fraction of the population-like pro athletes or the very muscular-whose muscle mass explains their high BMI. For most people with a BMI of 30 or more, their fitness is reduced by their weight, and their risk of conditions like diabetes and heart disease goes up.
Exercise doesn't erase all the risks of being heavy.
Yes, physical activity is important, but so is watching what you eat. Most studies show that both diet and exercise are important for diabetes prevention, for instance. And a study in the journal Obesity suggests that people with the highest BMIs have unhealthy eating habits.
Playing down the problem of excess weight is dangerous.
If you're heavy, you can cut your mortality risk by eating well and exercising-but research suggests that even active obese people are at 91% greater risk of dying than active people of normal weight.
