Fat and Fit Better than Skinny and Unfit
You want to live longer, right? To achieve that, are you better off being fat and fit, or better off being skinny but unfit? The title of the article probably provides the answer.. Fitness trumps fat. Fitness is far more important than the medical profession appreciates or realizes. High fitness overcomes the ill effects of many chronic diseases.
The largest study on fitness, body weight, and longevity was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in November of 2024 and found that people who are aerobically fit significantly reduced their risk of premature death, even if they are obese – not just overweight – but obese.
Listen to this. Being fit cuts the risk of premature death by half for people with obesity, compared to those who are normal weight but unfit. Fat and fit trumps skinny and unfit.
We believe part of the reason fitness improves longevity in the obese is that being fit reduces many risk factors for other chronic diseases. Obese individuals who are fit likely have better blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol profiles than those unfit even those who are unfit and with normal body weight
In Add Five Years to Your Life we discussed how improving fitness reduces mortality more than treating chronic disease pointing to a study by Kokkinos. Kokkinos in his study on the benefits of fitness found this: Over ten years being in the lowest 20% of cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) increases your risk of death by 400%. Having hypertension increases your risk by only 14%, cardiovascular disease increases your risk by 28%, cancer increases it 33%, diabetes increases it 34% and smoking increases it 40%. Simply moving your fitness levels from the bottom quintile of fitness to the next lower quintile will reduce your 10-year mortality from 400% to 288%.
To get out of that bottom quintile or 20% can be as easy as brisk walking. Even if you have little desire to be ultra fit, just get up and move around and walk more than you currently are.
Fitness and lifestyle and more important to achieving longevity than medications. Review our article, Does Medicine Make A Difference?
References:
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/bjsports/early/2024/11/07/bjsports-2024-108748.full.pdf
Kokkinos, Peter; Faselis, Charles; Samuel, Immanuel Babu Henery; et al: Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Mortality Risk Across the Spectra of Age, Race, and Sex. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Volume 80, Issue 6, August 9, 2022.
