Fat can mean fit, study says

E xercise may be even more important than the numbers on the scale for obese people looking to be healthier, a new study out of York University in Toronto has found.

The researchers gathered data from 853 patients with various levels of obesity, from mild to severe. Even the most obese patients who exercised had lower blood pressure, glucose levels and triglyceride levels compared to those who didn’t exercise much.

In the study published in the journal Obesity, 41 percent of the patients who were mildly obese were considered fit via a treadmill test. A quarter of the moderately obese patients were fit, and just 11 percent of the severely obese patients were fit. Researchers found that it didn’t matter how obese they were when they looked at the patients’ metabolic variables.

It’s the first study to show that no matter how obese a person is, physical fitness can have positive effects on cardiovascular health, regardless of the size of a person’s waistline, according to the authors.

“You can get fit without losing weight, and have health benefits,” the study’s lead researcher, professor Jennifer Kuk, says in a statement. She adds that exercising 150 minutes a week may only lead to a pound and a half of weight loss, but it can mean the difference between someone being heart-healthy or not.

“People don’t need to lose weight to be healthy,” says her collaborator, Dr. Sean Wharton.