A study is released discussing the effectiveness of exercise for overweight women. Feminists complain that fat women are being singled out. If a study were released discussing the effectiveness of exercise for overweight men:

a) Feminists would complain that women's health issues were being ignored.

b) Feminists would complain that only women are asked to control their diets when overweight.

c) Feminists would stop complaining.

I recently was told that reading a book called "Good Calories, Bad Calories" may help me understand with better clarity how to maintain my relatively lean build & not starve nor go on some exotic diet nor exercise every goddamn minute of every goddamn day. It is not a diet book but a study of the past 100 years of studies about diet & obesity. It is a 600 page book & will take much effort to read & understand. I've been reading for about a month & am planning on at least several more to really comprehend what the author it talking about. If you're fat & unhappy about it, this may be worth a look. It changed my mind about what I was brought up to believe.

I am in no way getting any kickback's from the publishing company or the author. Rather, it has had a profound effect on me & think others may benefit as well.

What a useless experiment. I'm a "big girl", and I'm trying to get more fit. But there is no way in hell I'm going to be able to exercise for an hour a day. How about some research telling women - all women, not just unappealingly fat ones - what kinds of exercises benefit them and how? Is it better to do just aerobics? Water aerobics? What kinds? How do exercise needs change as we age? Is bicycling just as good as step? What about treadmills? Walking on flat streets? Hills? What is REALLY the optimum heart rate - a lot of women are afraid to go to the top of their range because they won't burn any fat. I don't think that is true. How do weights fit into an exercise program? What about diet supplements? Vitamins? Water? The media report things in a spectacular fashion, but they are generally just bits and pieces,and many are later proven to be wrong - with little fanfare. I know from the media that women who are fat have little chance of being able to lose weight, that high protein diets are the way to go (they aren't), that I have to exercise for over 30 minutes to achieve any benefit, that my body continues to burn fat at an increased rate after I exercise, and that if I exercise hard I'm not burning fat. All of these "facts" are at the very least questionable. How about some perspective? How about a central site where I can sort out reality from fiction? The web gives me more nonsense than I can sort out. I want real information. I just don't know where to get it, and the media won't tell me.

But why "fat women"? It seems clear that these doctors had something in mind -- though the text does not make that clear -- when they focused on this demographic for their study.

Here's my guess:

1) Women are far more obsessed with their weight than men

2) Fat women are far more interested in losing fat than fat men

3) Lean muscle mass burns calories more efficiently than fat. Therefore, if you have n% more fat on your body, what %age more high-intensity exercise do you have to do to obtain a given rate of calorie expenditure? That's a very useful piece of information if you're interested in losing fat.

4) They have to study *somebody*. If they studied fat men, would you be moaning about how they don't care about women's health?

James, clearly some fat women do want to lose weight, hence they volunteered for the study. I am a fat woman who wants to lose weight too, so I am interested in the results.

The conclusion of the study was that 275 minutes per week was needed, not the previously recommended 150 minutes that you quoted.

The 55 minutes per day is for five days a week. not every day. If you break it down for every day it is 40 minutes per day.

But only the women who reported exercising for at least 55 minutes, five days a week, had kept the weight off after two years.

Obese woman who want to lose weight and keep it off must exercise for 55 minutes five days a week.

"This would suggest that the level of physical activity that may be necessary to sustain weight loss for as long as 24 months is approximately twice the public health recommendation for physical activity," the researchers wrote.

What a useless experiment. I'm a "big girl", and I'm trying to get more fit. But there is no way in hell I'm going to be able to exercise for an hour a day. How about some research telling women - all women, not just unappealingly fat ones - what kinds of exercises benefit them and how? Is it better to do just aerobics? Water aerobics? What kinds? How do exercise needs change as we age? Is bicycling just as good as step? What about treadmills? Walking on flat streets?

Just because an article tells you something you don't want to hear doesn't mean it's wrong. I can see why you're a "big girl". One hour per day of some kind of activity isn't hard. Come on! One in 24 hours! It's obvious you don't value your health enough to change, and that's OK, but quit with the complaining then. As for those other questions, there are numerous studies all over answering these questions. It's obvious you're fat because you make excuses. This is like stinking and making the excuse that hygiene takes too much time and you're not sure what soap to use. No sympathies.

What I found most interesting was that none of the women were able to lose more than 10% of their body weight and keep it off reliably. If you're a 200 lb woman (these women were supposedly medically obese, not just a little overweight), that means with lots of exercise and a strict diet, you're going to be a 180 lb woman. Maybe enough to make a difference to health but not enough to suddenly romp around the beach in a bikini with oodles of cheering fans.

In other words, diets don't really work. Period. Even with hours of exercise, the body does pretty much what it wants to do.