Obese Women Exercise only 60 Minutes a Year

Obese women exercise for an average of one hour a year, according to new research published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings. What's worse, another study indicates that the sedentary nature and obesity rates in household mothers is markedly increasing yearly.

In the first study, researchers analyzed the data of nearly 2600 adults between the ages of 20 and 74. Studying weight, diet, and exercise patterns, researchers were able to conclude that the average obese woman exercises vigorously for approximately 60 minutes a year. Obese men had a slightly better number, with nearly 4 hours of annual vigorous exercise.

It is recommended that the average person exercise moderately for a little more than two and a half hours each week, or an hour each week at a vigorous level, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Vigorous activity is defined as an activity that burns fat, such as most endurance-based aerobics like jogging or swimming.

With the average obese woman getting 1 hour's worth of exercise in a year, she is failing to meet the recommended amount of exercise to remain healthy 52 times over.

But another study published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings may explain why this is happening particularly in women.

Researchers from the University of South Carolina's Arnold School of Public Health showed that mothers in the U.S. are far less physically active than they were in previous decades, and are increasing the amount of time they spend doing sedentary activities almost yearly.

The research examined the trends in maternal activity in two groups of mothers over the course of 45 years. The groups were divided into mothers of young children and mothers of old children. The modern mothers (the group with younger children) surprisingly showed a 14-hour decline in weekly physical activity of any kind, dropping from 44 hours per week in 1965 to less than 30 hours per week by 2010. Worse still, the decline in stay-at-home mothers was nearly twice that of working mothers, meaning that some unemployed mothers only did physical activity for as little as 15 hours a week.

This decrease in physical activity was directly supplemented with an increase in sedentary behavior, such as watching television and surfing the web.

Naturally, sedentary behavior encourages weight gain, where significantly fewer calories are being burnt daily, compared to a more active person.

Both studies were published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings this February.

Study 1

Study 2