Overall fitness is more important than a person’s weight in avoiding a premature death, a new analysis published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found.
Cardiorespiratory fitness, the analysis found, is a better predictor of cardiovascular disease and mortality than body mass index (BMI).
The new research reviewed 20 studies with almost 400,000 adults from different parts of the world. Researchers found that someone who is “normal weight” and unfit has a risk of death that’s twice as much as someone who is normal weight and fit.
If someone is obese and fit, the risk of death is about half that of someone who is normal weight but unfit.
The review defined fitness using a stress test and defined weight and obesity by using body mass index. The majority of studies classified people as fit if they get out of the bottom-20th percentile of fitness.
“People view exercise only as a means to losing calories, and we really ought to get away from that,” said Siddhartha Angadi, associate professor of exercise physiology at the University of Virginia School of Education and Human Development.
“You ought to exercise to improve your heart health, to improve your muscular health, to basically maintain your pulmonary function and so on. That is what is going to give you the most ‘bang for your buck’ from a health and disease perspective in the long term,” he added.
Generally, Angadi said, the findings suggest it’s more important to be physically fit than it is to be a lower weight.
Focusing on weight rather than overall fitness presents a set of challenges, Angadi said, because people who are overweight or clinically obese often get tasked with losing weight. Many do in the short term, but most people regain all of it in five to 10 years.
“So what do you do to improve health in that situation? The nice thing is that exercise is pretty accessible,” Angadi said. “When you’re talking about getting out of the bottom 20th percentile, when you’re talking about just getting a little more fit, it is reasonably achievable.”