Study: Obese women need intense exercise

Media General News Service

Published: October 29, 2008

Any type of exercise is beneficial for health, but high-intensity exercise is likely necessary to achieve significant improvements in body composition, researchers at the University of Virginia have found.

The study involved 27 middle-age obese women with metabolic syndrome - a group of risk factors that includes abdominal obesity, unhealthy cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, elevated triglycerides and elevated fasting glucose.

The study’s findings will be published in the November issue of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.

In the study, which did not involve diet intervention, the women were divided into three groups. Seven of the women did not change their activity levels, 11 performed low-intensity exercise five days per week, and nine performed low-intensity exercise two days per week and high-intensity exercise three days per week.

Low-intensity exercise involved walking, Arthur Weltman, a UVa education professor, said. High-intensity exercise was defined as walk-jogging and jogging.

The high-intensity group reduced total abdominal fat, subcutaneous abdominal fat and visceral abdominal fat during the 16-week exercise period. Visceral fat surrounds the organs, and excessive amounts are associated with the development of diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure, Weltman said.

“For obese women entering the middle and later stages of life, reducing internal abdominal fat or preventing too much of it forming is crucial,“ Weltman said. “Exercise, especially vigorous exercise, may be the best way to do it.“

Often, people think they cannot engage in high-intensity exercise because they associate it with what athletes are able to do, not what is high-intensity for them. It varies from person to person. he said.

However, simply starting an exercise program is important to begin working toward changing body composition, he said.

Healthy adults 18 to 65 years old need moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity for at least 30 minutes five days each week, or vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity for at least 20 minutes three days each week, officials said. However, overweight and obese persons may need up to 300 minutes of exercise per week to lose weight.