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SALT LAKE CITY — In the battle against obesity in the U.S., the numbers are grim: More than two-thirds of adults are considered to be overweight, with one-third considered obese. But for those concerned about their weight and their health, it's important to remember there is good news: a little more activity equals a lot of medicine.
Dr. Liz Joy of Intermountain Healthcare understands the link between movement and mortality.
"If people improve their fitness, we see significant reductions in their likelihood of dying from coronary vascular disease, or from other causes like cancer," she said. "Higher levels of fitness are associated with lower risks of breast cancer and of colon cancer."
Your risk of developing diabetes is greatly reduced as well. Clearly, it's more important to focus on how much you move than on the weight you'd like to lose.
"What we really want is for people to engage in regular physical activity on most days of the week," Joy said. "Our efforts at trying to help people lose weight and sustain weight loss have been pretty unimpressive."
A Centers for Disease Control review of ninety-seven studies involving nearly three million people found that being overweight or slightly obese was linked to a six-percent lower risk of dying, though.
"People who are in that overweight category may actually live a little bit longer than people who are in the normal or underweight category," Joy said.
Joy finds a prescription for activity is much easier for her patients to swallow and to follow, "because it's a lot easier to tell somebody to ask somebody if they can take a 10-minute walk."
"That's a much easier, a much more positive message than saying, ‘I'd like you to lose five pounds by your next visit. That's really hard," she said.