Why exercise is more important than weight loss

For better health and a longer life span, exercise is more important than weight loss, especially if you are overweight or obese, according to an interesting new review of the relationships among fitness, weight, heart health and longevity. The study found that obese people typically lower their risks of heart disease and premature death far more by gaining fitness than by dropping weight or dieting.

The review adds to mounting evidence that most of us can be healthy at any weight, if we are also active enough.

Glenn Gaesser, a professor of exercise physiology at Arizona State University in Phoenix, is well-versed in the inadequacies of workouts for fat loss. For decades, he has been studying the effects of physical activity on people’s body compositions and metabolisms, as well as their endurance, with a particular focus on people who are obese.

For the new study, which was published in iScience, he and his colleague Siddhartha Angadi, a professor of education and kinesiology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, began scouring research databases for past studies related to dieting, exercise, fitness, metabolic health and longevity.

They set out to see what the research, involving tens of thousands of men and women, most of them obese, indicated about the relative benefits of losing weight or getting fit for improving metabolisms and longevity.

The contest, they found, was not close. “Compared head-tohead, the magnitude of benefit

was far greater from improving fitness than from losing weight,” Gaesser said.

As a whole, the studies they cite show that sedentary, obese men and women who begin to exercise and improve their fitness can lower their risk of premature death by as much as 30% or more, even if their weight does not budge. This improvement generally puts them at lower risk of early death than people who are considered to be of normal weight but out of shape, Gaesser said.

On the other hand, if heavy people lose weight by dieting

(not illness), their statistical risk of dying young typically drops by about 16%, but not in all studies. Some of the research cited in the new review finds that weight loss among obese people does not decrease mortality risks at all.

The primary takeaway of the new review, Gaesser concluded, is that you do not need to lose weight to be healthy. “You will be better off, in terms of mortality risk, by increasing your physical activity and fitness than by intentionally losing weight,” he said.

PHILIP CHEUNG/NEW YORK TIMES People wear face masks while exercising at F45 Training Arts District in Los Angeles in August. Most of us can be healthy at any weight, if we are also active enough.