More and more Americans are losing their battle with obesity.
And worse yet, children and teenagers face the highest risk of becoming obese.
To fight it, researchers say eating a healthy diet and getting plenty of exercise is everyone’s best defense. But which exercises are ideal for obese children and teenagers? A new study funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research say they’ve found the perfect workout routine for losing weight–and luckily, it’s something everyone can do.
“Obesity is an epidemic among youth,” says Ron Sigal, a researcher from the University of Calgary’s Institute for Public Health and Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta. “Adolescents who are overweight are typically advised to exercise more, but there is limited evidence on what type of exercise is best in order to lose fat.”
To find out which workout was best, researchers held a study involving 304 Canadian teens described as being overweight who had no prior success losing weight. During the first four weeks of the study, all of them received diet counseling to teach them about healthy eating behaviors. Then the teens were split into four groups to try one of four exercise plans: Resistance training, cardiovascular exercise, a combination of resistance and cardiovascular training, or no exercise at all.
Not surprisingly, researchers found that by the end of the study, the teens who did not exercise had the most trouble losing weight. But the workout that helped them lose the most weight was a combination of cardiovascular and strength training exercise–something that has been recommended to adults for years.
It even decreased their waist size even more than just diet alone.
“[Their body fat decreased] significantly more in those who did combined aerobic and resistance exercise than in those who only did aerobic exercise,” say Glen Kenny, a researcher from the University of Ottawa. “Remarkably, among participants who completed at least 70 per cent of the prescribed exercise sessions, waist circumference decreased close to seven centimeters in those randomized to combined aerobic plus resistance exercise, versus about four centimeters in those randomized to do just one type of exercise, with no change in those randomized to diet alone.”
What These Results Mean For You
While exercise alone isn’t enough to stop the obesity epidemic, something which researchers readily admit, making it a regular habit can make it easier to lose weight–and the more help teens have, the better. This advice isn’t great just for teens either; no matter what your age, doing resistance and cardiovascular training often can help lower your body fat significantly. Better yet, you don’t need to visit a gym to reap these results.
Readers: What is your current workout routine?
Sources:
Research Study Analyzes the Best Exercise and Workout Plan for Obese Youths – EurekAlert.org
Study Shows Which Exercise is Best for Overweight Teens – Resistance Training and Cardiovascular Exercise – MedicalXpress.com
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