Fitness Beats Fatness as Predictor of Longevity

A less than shocking study that is getting an extraordinary amount of press reports that it is better to be fit and fat than to be unfit and thin, or, in other other words, it’s better to be fit than unfit. Whatever. Science Daily reports that the research, conducted at the University of South Carolina, examined the associations between cardiorespiratory fitness, various
clinical measures of adiposity (body fat) and death in older women and
men. The study included 2,603 adults age 60 years or older. Researchers found that fit participants had lower death rates than unfit participants within
each stratum of adiposity, except for two of the obesity groups. In
most instances, death rates for those with higher fitness were less
than half of rates for those who were unfit. Wait, there’s more: Higher levels of fitness were inversely related to all-cause death in
both normal-weight and overweight BMI subgroups, in those with a normal
waist circumference and in those with abdominal obesity, and in those
who have normal percent body fat and those who have excessive percent
body fat.
Read more in Science Daily.