Thirty Mins Not Enough Says Harvard
Written by Jane Tucker | Sunday, 28 March 2010 | There are 0 comments
This research is not good news for those women who don’t like working out
According to new research, the British government's advice that in order to maintain a healthy weight adults need a minimum of half an hour a day of exercise at least five days a week is faulty! A new research project done in America claims that what women really need to keep in shape is a whole hour of moderate exercise every day.
The research done by Harvard University looked at 34,000 middle aged women over a thirteen year time span. The participants were given questionnaires about their physical activity and eating habits. The women were put into three groups, firstly those who managed to do over seven hours of exercise a week, secondly those who did between 2:30mins and seven hours weekly and thirdly those who worked out for less than 2:30mins weekly.
Over the thirteen years the women whose average age was 54 gained an average weight of 2.6 kilos but the group which exercised the most had the least weight gain whereas there was very little difference in the weight gain recorded by the other two groups. In fact the researchers concluded that only those who exercised more than an hour a day could claim no weight gain.
This research is not going to be good news for those women who don’t like working out and maybe a bit demoralizing for them. What this research does not take into account however is that diet plays a big part in weight loss and weight maintenance and that eating less can compensate to a certain extent for less exercise. A regular diet of lots of fruits and vegetables with lean meats and protein is as important if not more important than getting exercise.
Exercise should not just be viewed as a means losing weight but also as a way of relaxing, removing stress and improving the health of your heart. Regular exercise has been shown to improve sexual function in both men and women as well as to produce a feeling of well being and confidence. This research was written up in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
