Exercising at the age of 20 years to help keep you stay slim while middle-aged

Exercising at the age of 20 years to help keep you stay slim while middle-aged

If you want to fit in middle age, is the active in your 20s and still active in the 30s, and 40s, especially if you are a woman, according to new research shows. In that study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers followed approximately 3.500 people aged between 18-39 years for 2 decades. The women who maintain the lifestyle of moderate exercise to gain weight during the study about 6 pounds less weight, on average, than their counterparts of the least active, as obtained in the study.

This trend is similar among men, but smaller: The most active men reduced their weight about 3 kg compared with the least active men.

"Sports-specific exercise that we examine in this study include running, fast walking, bicycling, engaging in recreational sports, even housework done quickly and work," said lead researcher, Arlene Hankinson, MD, an instructor in the prevention disease at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

The key to maintaining a healthy weight, added Dr. Hankinson, is to "become active and stay active and to integrate activities into the style of your daily life in ways you can defend." Exercising regularly helps keep excess weight regardless of the initial weight of a person or the number of calories they consume in a day usually.

Although the invention is not surprising, most studies of exercise and weight loss will point to the influence of physical activity on weight loss, rather than on prevention of weight gain. In fact, the study authors note, there is little evidence to suggest that current government recommendations for physical activity - at least 30 minutes of exercise moderate, 5 days a week - enough to prevent weight gain, especially in the transition from adolescence to midlife period in which many people increased weight.

Dr. Hankinson and colleagues assess the level of physical activity using questions that measure both the duration and intensity of the 13 kinds of different sports (including work activities), so that the results of research can not be directly translated into a prescription weight loss simple. However, Dr. Hankinson said this research confirms that people who follow the guidelines recommended by the government will see benefits in long-term weight loss.

In relative terms, few people are able to maintain moderate to heavy exercise routines into middle age. Only about 12% of men and 11% of the women in this study are very active during the period of 20 years.

Weight difference between those who exercise that does not exercise regularly tend to be more pronounced in the older study participants, said Tim Church, MD, of Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, LA. "The difference between the 2 groups was only going to continue to get bigger when they were aged 55 and 65 and 75 years," said Dr. Church, who studies physical activity and health but was not involved in current research. "The increase in actual weight loss has not even started in this group, from the viewpoint of age."

Unlike most studies where people reported their weight - an approach known to be inaccurate - staff researcher in the study individually weigh the participants and interviewed them about their physical activity, press Dr. Church. "This is a phenomenal research," he said. "These data are obtained with the most restrictive way possible as you can."