TOTALLY GEEKED!

691

View comments

Being fat but fit is a myth, scientists claim.

If you are overweight, doing lots of exercise will not prevent an early death.

Researchers say it is far more important to be slim, even if you are unfit.

For years experts have believed it is possible to be ‘fat but fit’ and still relatively healthy.

Scroll down for video 

 

 

+2

Myth-busting: A Swedish study has revealed the belief that you can be fat but fit is a myth, after it showed that if you are overweight, doing lots of exercise will not prevent an early death (file image)

Heavier adults have assumed that those few extra pounds didn’t matter as long as they took regular exercise.

But findings from a Swedish study of more than 1.3 million men suggest they were wrong.

Professor Peter Nordstrom, from Umea University, looked at the records of men for an average of 29 years from when they were 18 to adulthood.

They had all joined the armed forces, which involved undertaking a fitness test on an exercise bike when they signed up.

The men had also been weighed and measured, which enabled researchers to calculate whether they were obese.

Professor Nordstrom and his team then looked at the men’s records to see who had since died from illnesses including cancer and heart disease.

They found that men who were fit were generally far less likely to die than if they were inactive.

 

 

+2

Vital: Heavier adults have assumed that those few extra pounds didn’t matter as long as they took regular exercise (file image)

But this effect was cancelled out if they were overweight.

And men who were slim and inactive were 30 per cent less likely to die than those who were fat but fit.

Professor Nordstrom, whose study is published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, said: ‘Unfit normal-weight individuals had a 30 per cent lower risk of death from any cause than fit obese individuals.

‘Low aerobic fitness in late adolescence is associated with an increased risk of early death.

‘Furthermore, the risk of early death was higher in fit obese individuals than unfit normal weight individuals.’

He said the findings contradicted the belief that ‘obese individuals can fully compensate mortality risk by being physically fit’.

Professor Nordstrom said that being slim – having a low body mass index (BMI), a measure of obesity – was more crucial in preventing early death than keeping fit.

‘These results suggest that low BMI early in life is more important than high physical fitness, with regard to reducing the risk of early death.’ he added.

Around two-thirds of adults in Britain are overweight or obese, and the UK’s rates are amongst the worst in Europe.

Ministers are due to announce a new strategy in the New Year specifically addressing childhood obesity following accusations they have failed to act.

This latest study contradicts research published three years ago showing that the obese who were fit were in fact healthier than normal weight individuals.

Academics from the University of South Carolina in the U.S. looked at 43,000 men and women.

They found their risk of developing heart disease and cancer was the same as slim adults who didn’t exercise.

Experts are divided as to whether being a healthy weight is more important than being fit.

Some argue that excess fat tissue triggers cancer, heart disease and diabetes regardless of whether someone takes exercise

But others claim that being inactive is as harmful as smoking, and contributes to one in six of all deaths.