BOSTON—According to a new study, bicycling, similar to brisk walking, is associated with less weight gain among overweight and obese women (Arch Intern Med. 2010;170(12):1050-56). A 16-year follow-up study of 18,414 women in the Nurses' Health Study II Weight was conducted with weight change between 1989 and 2005 as the primary outcome, and the odds of gaining more than 5 percent of baseline body weight by 2005 was the secondary outcome.
At baseline, only 39 percent of participants walked briskly, while only 1.2 percent bicycled for more than 30 minutes/d. For a 30-minute/d increase in activity between 1989 and 2005, weight gain was significantly less for brisk walking, bicycling and other activities, but not for slow walking. Women who reported no bicycling in 1989 and increased to as little as 5 minutes/d in 2005, gained less weight than those who remained non-bikers. Normal-weight women who bicycled more than four hours/week in 2005 had lower odds of gaining more than 5 percent of their baseline body weight compared with those who reported no bicycling; overweight and obese women had a lower odds at two to three hours/week.
