Obesity and Exercise

Regular, consistent exercise may be effective in preventing weight gain over time.
ABC World News (12/14, story 9, 0:30, Stephanopoulos) reported, "Switching gears now, what happens when the battle of the sexes meets the battle of the bulge? A new study," published Dec. 15 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, "shows that men lose weight more quickly than women, but women are better at keeping the pounds off in the first place, if they exercise."
"If you want to stave off the middle-age spread, get active in your 20s and stay that way through your 30s and 40s, especially if you're a woman," CNN /Health.com (12/14, Harding) reported. For the study, "researchers followed about 3,500 people between the ages of 18 and 30 for two decades." They found that "women who maintained a regimen of moderate-to-vigorous exercise throughout the study gained about 13.5 pounds less, on average, than their least-active counterparts."
The Time (12/14, Park) "Healthland" blog reported that "men who were the most active gained 2.6 kg fewer per year than those who were least active." The study's lead author, Arlene L. Hankinson, MD, of the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, "says her findings should establish that regular and consistent exercise at a moderate intensity is effective in preventing weight gain, particularly over time."
HealthDay (12/14, Gardner) reported that "regular exercise while young only appeared to prevent later weight gain if it reached about 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity a week, such as running, fast walking, basketball, exercise classes or daily activities like housework." Notably, "this is the amount of physical activity recommended by the US Department of Health and Human Services."
According to MedPage Today (12/14, Phend), "The researchers cautioned, though, that 'higher activity alone may not be sufficient to entirely prevent age-related weight gain,' as even those with the highest levels of activity packed on pounds and inches over two decades." The study authors concluded, "Some age-related weight gain may be unavoidable in our society, as it has been observed even among a population of vigorously active runners through middle-age." WebMD (12/14, Doheny) and HeartWire (12/14, O'Riordan) also covered the study.