Abstract
Previous research has shown that physical activity may mitigate the association between overweight/obesity and a number of negative health outcomes; however, less is known on how the duration of overweight/obesity alters this association. Therefore, the purpose of this leading article was to synthesize recent studies from our research group examining how physical activity, overweight/obesity classification, and importantly, overweight/obesity duration impact the association with a variety of different health outcomes. Five studies were analyzed, each of which used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to analyze six mutually exclusive groups and their respective association with cardiovascular disease risk, all-cause mortality, multi-morbidity, health-related quality of life, and mild depressive symptoms. These studies detailed that physical inactivity, overweight/obesity classification, and overweight/obesity duration were each independently associated with cardiovascular disease risk and multi-morbidity. Additionally, physical activity reduced the risk of all-cause mortality across all weight classifications/durations, and also reduced the association with depressive symptoms and poor health-related quality of life among those overweight/obese for longer durations. These results illustrate that, while physical activity may reduce the association with negative health outcomes, overweight/obesity appears to increase this association independent of physical activity level, with this further exacerbated by the duration of overweight/obesity. Therefore, the emerging studies examining the importance of physical activity among overweight/obese individuals should also consider the duration of overweight/obesity as this will likely alter the associations present.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Mokdad AH, Ford ES, Bowman BA, et al. Prevalence of obesity, diabetes, and obesity-related health risk factors, 2001. JAMA. 2003;289:76–9.
Kesaniemi YK, Danforth E, Jensen MD, et al. Dose-response issues concerning physical activity and health: an evidence-based symposium. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2001;33:S351–8.
Poirier P, Giles TD, Bray GA, et al. Obesity and cardiovascular disease: pathophysiology, evaluation, and effect of weight loss: an update of the 1997 American Heart Association Scientific Statement on Obesity and Heart Disease from the Obesity Committee of the Council on Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Metabolism. Circulation. 2006;113:898–918.
Adams KF, Schatzkin A, Harris TB, et al. Overweight, obesity, and mortality in a large prospective cohort of persons 50 to 71 years old. N Engl J Med. 2006;355:763–78.
Duncan GE. The “fit but fat” concept revisited: population-based estimates using NHANES. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2010;7:47.
Loprinzi P, Smit E, Lee H, et al. The “fit but fat” paradigm addressed using accelerometer-determined physical activity data. N Am J Med Sci. 2014;6:295–301.
McAuley PA, Blair SN. Obesity paradoxes. J Sports Sci. 2011;29:773–82.
Rey-López JP, de Rezende LF, Pastor-Valero M, et al. The prevalence of metabolically healthy obesity: a systematic review and critical evaluation of the definitions used. Obes Rev Off J Int Assoc Study Obes. 2014;15:781–90.
Nakajima T, Fujioka S, Tokunaga K, et al. Noninvasive study of left ventricular performance in obese patients: influence of duration of obesity. Circulation. 1985;71:481–6.
Janssen I, Katzmarzyk PT, Ross R. Duration of overweight and metabolic health risk in American men and women. Ann Epidemiol. 2004;14:585–91.
Hu Y, Bhupathiraju SN, de Koning L, et al. Duration of obesity and overweight and risk of type 2 diabetes among US women. Obes Silver Spring Md. 2014;22:2267–73.
Abdullah A, Stoelwinder J, Shortreed S, et al. The duration of obesity and the risk of type 2 diabetes. Public Health Nutr. 2011;14:119–26.
Dankel SJ, Loenneke JP, Loprinzi PD. The impact of overweight/obesity duration on the association between physical activity and cardiovascular disease risk: an application of the “fat but fit” paradigm. Int J Cardiol. 2015;201:88–9.
Dankel SJ, Loenneke JP, Loprinzi PD. Does the fat-but-fit paradigm hold true for all-cause mortality when considering the duration of overweight/obesity? Analyzing the WATCH (Weight, Activity and Time Contributes to Health) paradigm. Prev Med. 2016;83:37–40.
Dankel SJ, Loenneke JP, Loprinzi PD. Mild depressive symptoms among Americans in relation to physical activity, current overweight/obesity, and self-reported history of overweight/obesity. Int J Behav Med. 2016;23(5):553–60.
Dankel SJ, Loenneke JP, Loprinzi PD. The WATCH (Weight Activity and Time Contributes to Health) paradigm and quality of life: the impact of overweight/obesity duration on the association between physical activity and health-related quality of life. Int J Clin Pract. 2016;70:409–15.
Dankel SJ, Loenneke JP, Loprinzi PD. The impact of overweight/obesity duration and physical activity on medical multimorbidity: examining the WATCH paradigm. Am J Health Promot (in press).
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 2008 physical activity guidelines for Americans. Available from: http://www.health.gov/paguidelines/pdf/paguide.pdf. Accessed 4 Aug 2015.
Dankel SJ, Loenneke JP, Loprinzi PD. Physical activity and diet on quality of life and mortality: the importance of meeting one specific or both behaviors. Int J Cardiol. 2016;202:328–30.
McInnis KJ, Franklin BA, Rippe JM. Counseling for physical activity in overweight and obese patients. Am Fam Physician. 2003;67:1249–56.
Rhodes RE, Kates A. Can the affective response to exercise predict future motives and physical activity behavior? A systematic review of published evidence. Ann Behav Med. 2015;49:715–31.
Gaesser GA, Angadi SS, Sawyer BJ. Exercise and diet, independent of weight loss, improve cardiometabolic risk profile in overweight and obese individuals. Phys Sportsmed. 2011;39:87–97.
Dankel SJ, Loenneke JP, Loprinzi PD. Participation in muscle-strengthening activities as an alternative method for the prevention of multimorbidity. Prev Med. 2015;81:54–7.
Dankel SJ, Loenneke JP, Loprinzi PD. Determining the importance of meeting muscle-strengthening activity guidelines: is the behavior or the outcome of the behavior (strength) a more important determinant of all-cause mortality? Mayo Clin Proc. 2016;91:166–74.
Bouchard C, Daw EW, Rice T, et al. Familial resemblance for VO2max in the sedentary state: the HERITAGE family study. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1998;30:252–8.
Troy LM, Hunter DJ, Manson JE, et al. The validity of recalled weight among younger women. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 1995;19:570–2.
Dahl AK, Reynolds CA. Accuracy of recalled body weight: a study with 20-years of follow-up. Obesity. 2013;21:1293–8.
Stafford M, Hemingway H, Marmot M. Current obesity, steady weight change and weight fluctuation as predictors of physical functioning in middle aged office workers: the Whitehall II Study. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 1998;22:23–31.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Funding
No sources of funding were used to assist in the preparation of this article.
Conflict of interest
Scott J. Dankel, Jeremy P. Loenneke, and Paul D. Loprinzi declare that they have no conflicts of interest relevant to the content of this review.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Dankel, S.J., Loenneke, J.P. & Loprinzi, P.D. Health Outcomes in Relation to Physical Activity Status, Overweight/Obesity, and History of Overweight/Obesity: A Review of the WATCH Paradigm. Sports Med 47, 1029–1034 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-016-0641-7
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-016-0641-7