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Study finds average obese female takes only one hour of vigorous exercise a year
The average obese woman gets just one hour of vigorous exercise a year, according to a recent study.
Researchers at the University of Carolina were startled by the extent of inactivity they discovered, with obese males only clocking up an average of 3.6 hours of vigorous exercise per annum.
"They're living their lives from one chair to another," Edward Archer, who led the investigation and is now a research fellow with the Nutrition Obesity Research Center at the University of Alabama, told Health Day.
"We didn't realise we were that sedentary. There are some people who are vigorously active, but it's offset by the huge number of individuals who are inactive."
Researchers examined the results of a 2005-06 US government survey of adults aged 20 to 74. Among other things, the survey tracked the weight, diet and sleep patterns of nearly 2,600 adults.
Vigorous exercise was defined as activities that burn fat, such as jogging and rope-skipping, with accelerometers used to track participants’ movements.
Despite the stark discovery, the main focus of the study was finding better ways to measure how much exercise people get, and the researchers themselves admit the results are not entirely conclusive.
The team acknowledged that the accelerometer did not measure swimming or biking particularly well, while another expert pointed out that the definition of ‘vigorous’ exercise is limited, as in cases of extreme obesity, general walking could be classed as such.
The study first appeared in the December 2013 issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
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