Are you fitter than a fat guy?

Researchers at the University of South Carolina checked the body mass index (BMI) of more than 14,000 middle-aged men, then asked them to hop on the treadmill for a fitness test. Guys who maintained or increased their level of fitness over six years were less likely to die of heart disease or any other cause […]

Researchers at the University of South Carolina checked the body mass index (BMI) of more than 14,000 middle-aged men, then asked them to hop on the treadmill for a fitness test. Guys who maintained or increased their level of fitness over six years were less likely to die of heart disease or any other cause for the next 11 years, according to the results, published recently in the journal Circulation.

“We also found men who lost fitness had a higher risk of death regardless of their weight change,” says study author Duck-chul Lee, Ph.D. In fact, gaining or losing weight didn’t have any effect on whether the men keeled over, once fitness was factored in.

Don’t blame your BMI

BMI isn’t a perfect measure of obesity—for one thing, it doesn’t take into account your muscle mass. But the researchers did the same calculations with percent changes in body fat and body weight, too, and found very similar results, Lee says.

The findings don’t mean that being overweight is healthy. But they do suggest our collective focus on fatness may be a little too intense. “We should think more about maintaining or improving fitness rather than worrying too much about weight gain,” Lee says.

The life-extending effects of exercise

In other words, don’t sweat it too much if you’ve got a gut despite logging time at the gym. Fitness improves your cholesterol profile, reduces heart-harming inflammation, and increases your body’s response to the hormone insulin, thereby reducing your risk of diabetes. All these effects occur regardless of whether you drop a jeans size, Lee says.

Culled from men’shealthnews.com