Fitness Level Matters More Than Weight for Longevity, Study Finds
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Being physically fit is more important than your body weight in lowering the risk of death and heart disease, a recent study found.
Aerobic fitness reflects how well the heart, lungs, and muscles work together, while BMI only measures weight and height, making fitness a better indicator of overall health.
To improve your fitness, experts recommend picking feasible movements for your body and doing it consistently.
Being in shape has a greater impact on heart health and longevity than the number on the scale, according to a recent study.
People considered fit, regardless of their body mass index, had a similar risk of death as fit people with a normal BMI, researchers reported in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in November. In addition, overweight or obese individuals who were fit had a lower risk of death than unfit people with a normal weight.
“The risk of being unfit far exceeds the risks of carrying some extra pounds,” Siddhartha Angadi, PhD, senior author of the study and a cardiovascular exercise physiologist at the University of Virginia, told Health in an email. “Too many folks simply view exercise as a means to expending calories whereas exercise is a powerful tool for improving cardiorespiratory, muscle, and metabolic health, and often these benefits occur even in the absence of weight change.”
The study’s results bolster claims by many researchers and medical providers that BMI—a calculation that compares someone’s weight to their height—is a flawed way to assess obesity and, by extension, health risk. In a report published Tuesday in the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, an international commission argued that obesity should be assessed not by BMI alone but by taking into account various factors, such as a person’s medical conditions.
