Article content The American College of Sports Medicine recently published a consensus statement summarizing the latest research on physical activity and excess body weight. Exercise has long been recommended as part of treatment plan designed to lose unwanted pounds, but does science still support the notion exercise is an important component in weight loss? Societal standards of what constitutes an ideal weight aside, most health-care professionals advocate weight loss based on its effect on health, not how you look in a pair of jeans. Carrying too much weight increases the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, type 2 diabetes , some cancers and breathing problems.
Yet the difficulty in prescribing exercise as a weight-loss tool is not only does it take a lot of exercise to affect weight, but individuals carrying excess pounds are less likely to start an exercise program and if they do, they are also more likely to drop out. Another issue is weight-loss success from exercise alone isn’t guaranteed, even if the same group of people follow the same exercise routine. And while there’s some evidence suggesting it takes a minimum of 150 minutes per week of moderate to vigorous intensity exercise to move the numbers on the scale, there’s no consensus among experts it’s enough, especially given the variability of the results in study subjects.
Even then weight loss is modest if there’s no concurrent reduction in the daily number of calories consumed. Accord.
