Overweight people 'find it harder to exercise'

With more people being diagnosed as obese every year, healthcare experts are constantly striving to promote the benefits of regular physical actviity, but for those who are classed as overweight, there are boundaries prevnting them from doing so, a new survey has found.

According to research published in the the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, overweight people are often putting off going to gyms and health clubs far more than people of a normal weight.

The investigation featured 1,552 people, 989 of whom were classified in the overweight category, who were all asked questions concerning their attitude to exercise, the social pressure of doing so and the difficulty of actually carrying out physical activity.

Results showed that ability to do exercise was not a major factor in overweight people's reluctance to visit health clubs.

Rather, it was their apprehension about exercising in front of other people, namely those who were younger, fitter or of a normal weight.

The study was performed by researchers at the George Washington University Medical Center, who told health cover holders: "One of the most noteworthy findings of this study was that OW [overweight] and NW [normal weight] subjects did not differ in their overall attitude toward exercising at a health club. This similarity in overall attitude of the OW and NW to club exercise is somewhat surprising, in that it is often assumed that OW people do not exercise as much as NW people because the two groups have different attitudes about exercise."

According to the specialists, overcoming the barriers of self-consciousness is the key to having an impact on the projected World Health Organization figures, which show that there will be 2.3 million overweight people in the world by 2015.

Healthcare professionals and people at exercise clubs should strive to make overweight people feel as comfortable as possible when visiting the facility and signing them up to a fitness plan, as this is will increase the likelihood of them sticking to a fitness regime, the authors said.

"Accordingly, individual beliefs about health club exercise should be evaluated for each new client. If a plan to increase the positive beliefs and reverse the negative beliefs is constructed and followed, the likelihood of retention of that client will be augmented," the team recommended.

Posted by Louise Jones

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