Study: Active but Obese Face Greater Risks

Being fit but fat isn't good enough. Excess weight, all by itself, can take years off your life, even if you get plenty of exercise, a study found.

"There has been some suggestion that if you are particularly active, you don't have to worry about your body weight, about your diet. That's very misleading," said the report's lead author, Dr. Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health.

The study of 116,500 women was published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine and was based on questionnaires used in the Nurses' Health Study, which has followed female nurses since 1976, and on death certificates and medical records.

Women who were physically active but obese had almost twice the risk of death of women were both active and lean. Women who were sedentary but slender were 55 percent more likely to die early. Women who were both sedentary and obese were almost 2 1/2 times more likely to die.

"Being physically active did not cancel out the increased mortality of overweight. Being lean did not counterbalance the risk effect of being sedentary," Hu said.