A new study appearing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, February 2005, confirms what many of us have known -- reducing body fat requires healthy nutrition and not just more exercise.
From the Reuters article [click header to read the article]: "A total of 445 adolescents and their mothers completed questionnaires about the frequency, length, and intensity of physical activity they had engaged in during leisure time, at school or as a means of transportation during a 7-day period. All of the subjects are involved in the ongoing Stockholm Weight Development Study." Around 15 percent of the boys and 10 percent of the girls were overweight or obese -- 34 percent of the mothers were also overweight or obese. The girls had much higher levels of body fat than did the boys.
For the boys, fat mass decreased as their activity levels increased, but this wasn't true for the girls in the study. The results seem to indicate that for the girls, a healthy diet with reduced simple carbs and low saturated and trans fats, along with regular exercise, is necessary in order to reduce body fat. As they age, the boys will find that same is true for them as well. The biggest difference between the boys and girls in the study is undoubtedly the high levels of testosterone teen boys experience -- an endogenous hormone known to increase muscle mass and decrease fat mass, but only in the presence of exercise.
The take-home message here is that merely going to the gym several times a week will not burn off the fat if you are still eating McSludge for lunch or emptying a bag of chips while sitting in front of the TV. I've said it before and I'll keep on saying it -- diet is 75 percent of the process when you want to lose fat or build muscle.
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