Saturday, 16 January 2016 02:00

Can You Be Overweight and Fit at the Same Time?

When people need to lose weight, many times these individuals will be told that they need to “get fit”. But is it possible for a person to be overweight and fit at the same time? 

The truth is that weight doesn’t define everything when it comes to your fitness. Your activity level, nutrition, the quality of your sleep, and even the health of your relationships all play a role in your fitness level. Recent research has shown that you can actually become fit even if your scale is telling you that you’re a bit on the heavy side.


This isn’t to say that you can be morbidly obese and yet still be physically fit. However, a recent study has indicated that being overweight doesn’t stop you from achieving a solid level of physical fitness.

The research was published within the International Journal of Epidemiology. The researchers tracked over 1.3 young men over a span of an average of 29 years. Throughout that time, they followed the link between the aerobic fitness level, the weights and the risk of early death of those men. What they determined was that men who were a healthy body weight – regardless of their fitness level – had a 30 percent lower risk of dying young than people who were obese but physically fit.

Therefore, this indicated that the benefits of being physically fit were held back by the high levels of obesity. Therefore, fitness has reduced benefit among people who are very obese.

That said, the study did not say that there was no benefit to being fit when also carrying excess fat on the body. The study did not look into the difference between the risk of early death of people who were obese and physically fit and those who were obese and not physically fit.

It was in a meta analysis of 10 individual studies that found that overweight people and even obese people who have a high cardiorespiratory fitness level actually have a similar early death risk rate as people who are fit and are within their healthy weight zone. This points to the fact that it is possible to be overweight and fit simultaneously. It was in that review that it was also determined that people who are unfit also have twice the risk of early death regardless of their weight.

Therefore, it doesn’t matter what your weight might be, you are giving yourself a notably larger chance to be healthy and to live longer lives as long as you are physically active on a regular basis. This also shows that fitness can occur regardless of a person’s weight. You really can be overweight and fit at the same time, albeit with limitations. 

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