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By Matthew Rees

Food and Health Fact #28: The role of physical activity in weight loss and weight gain

See all previously-published facts here

Exercise and fitness deliver a range of benefits – lower blood pressure; reduced risk of heart attack and stroke, etc. – but they typically have a very limited impact on weight loss, according to numerous studies. Similarly, physical inactivity has not been the driver of the obesity crisis, given that “evidence on declines in work-related physical activity suggests that reductions have been gradual and largely predated the dramatic increase in weight gain across the developed world in the past few decades” (as professors at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Washington have written). Weight gain, points out Michael Greger, MD, “is more [about] our fast food than our slow motion.”