What is more important than weight? This study subverts your understanding 

We always hear slogans like “lose weight” and “slim down”, as if having an ideal weight means being healthy. However, a major study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine tells us that compared to weight, the health of the body – that is, physical fitness – is the key to determining our lifespan and health.

This study analyzed a large amount of data to reveal the relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and body mass index (BMI) and the risk of death from cardiovascular disease and various causes. The results are thought-provoking: having good physical fitness can significantly reduce the risk of death even if the BMI is overweight; while people with poor physical fitness face higher health risks regardless of whether their weight is normal or not.

Losing weight ≠ being healthy? This study tells you the truth

Obesity is indeed a global health problem, associated with a variety of diseases and increased risk of death. Traditional health strategies have always emphasized the importance of weight loss. However, this study has sounded the alarm for us: simply losing weight does not necessarily bring long-term health benefits.

Researchers have found that some observational studies and clinical trials have shown that deliberately losing weight through dieting alone cannot effectively reduce the risk of death. What is really important? It is CRF, that is, the level of cardiopulmonary fitness. CRF reflects the efficiency of the body’s use of oxygen during exercise, and it shows a strong negative correlation with mortality – the better the cardiopulmonary function, the lower the risk of death.

Research reveals: Physical fitness is the real “health code”

This study explored the joint effects of CRF and BMI on all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality through systematic review and meta-analysis. The researchers searched a large amount of literature and finally included 20 high-quality studies covering data of nearly 400,000 people, ensuring the reliability and wide applicability of the research results.

The researchers divided the participants into healthy and unhealthy groups based on their CRF levels, and into normal weight, overweight and obese groups based on their BMI. The results showed:

Regardless of BMI, CRF can significantly reduce the risk of death. That is to say, even if you are overweight or obese, as long as you have good physical fitness, the risk of illness and death will not increase significantly. The risk is significantly higher for unhealthy individuals in any BMI category. Even if you are of normal weight, if your physical fitness is poor, the health risks cannot be ignored. Specifically, people with normal weight but unhealthy have a 1.92-fold increased risk of all-cause mortality; people who are overweight but unhealthy have a 1.82-fold increased risk; and people who are obese but unhealthy have a 2.04-fold increased risk. In terms of cardiovascular disease, the increased risk among unhealthy people is even more significant.

Even more exciting is that the study found that reaching a CRF level above the 20th percentile of the age-adjusted health standard is enough to significantly reduce the risk. This means that we don’t need to be athletes, we only need to exercise moderately and reach a certain level of physical fitness to reap significant health benefits.

The conclusion of this study is very clear: CRF is the key factor in determining health and life expectancy, rather than weight. Having good physical fitness can effectively reduce the risk of death from various causes, especially the risk of cardiovascular disease.

This study does not deny the significance of weight loss, but reminds us that we cannot just focus on the number on the scale. Compared with simply losing weight, improving physical fitness through exercise may be a more sustainable and effective health strategy.