According to researchers, weight training is highly recommended when it comes to dealing with body fat. Doing weight training alongside aerobic activity is best but 20 minutes of weight training everyday reduced the likelihood of belly fat developing in healthy men compared to those who did aerobic activities for the same period of time.
Lead author Rania Mekary from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health explained that sarcopenia, the loss of muscle mass from the skeletal system, is associated with aging so just using body weight to gauge health won't suffice. Instead, waistlines are better indicators of healthy bodies in older adults.
Previously, studies have already been done about the health of older adults but these focused on too specific populations, were too short in duration and had results too mixed. This new study involved a larger sample, incorporated a wider range of body mass indexes and entailed a longer time frame.
Researchers gathered 10,500 health men from the United States, all aged 40 years old and above, from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. All the subjects were also enrolled in the study from 1996 to 2008. During the 12-year period, activity levels were compared to determine which had the most effect on a subject's waistline.
According to results, subjects who engaged in weight training for at least 20 minutes a day were less likely to gain abdominal fat compared to those who only did moderate-to-vigorous aerobic exercise for a longer period of time. Those who did weight training lost 0.67 cm off their waists on average while the aerobic exercisers lost just 0.33 cm. Those who did yard work lost 0.16 cm while those who did nothing but watch TV gained bigger midsections.
"This study underscores the importance of weight training in reducing abdominal obesity, especially among the elderly," said Frank Hu, HSPH nutrition and epidemiology professor and senior author for the study, reiterating best results are achieved when weight training and aerobic exercise are combined.
Receiving funding support from the National Institutes of Health, the study was carried out by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School, Institut Universitaire de Cardiologie et de Pneumologie de Québec, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences University, University of Southern Denmark, São Paulo State university and Brigham and Women's Hospital.
Other authors include: Anders Grontved, Edward Giovannucci, Jean-Pierre Despres, Eric Rimm, Leandro Pereira De Moura, Walter Willett and Morteza Asgarzadeh.
