Overweight exercise more than people think

Just because someone is overweight does not mean he or she is not exercising or considering exercising, U.S. researchers suggest. Deborah Walton Smith - a senior lecturer at Gonzaga University, who conducted the study while a graduate student at Case Western Reserve, with nursing professors Joyce Fitzpatrick and Mary Quinn Griffin at Case Western Reserve - surveyed the activities and intensions of 175 overweight and obese people who visited clinics operated or owned by nurse practitioners in Spokane, Wash. Study subjects were age 40 years or older and had a body mass index of 25 or higher - which is overweight and obese. The study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, finds 29 percent had been exercising for six months, 39 percent regularly exercised, 25 percent contemplated exercising and 12 percent had no desire or thoughts of getting active. However, those with lower BMI scores in the obese range -- a BMI of 30 and above -- tended to exercise more. "This verified other research information that the higher their BMI, the less active people were," Quinn Griffin says.