A novel study evidences that bicycling and brisk walking could help women keep off the extra weight. 

Researchers from Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, U.S., found that women can control their weight by bicycling and brisk walking for a little time each day.

USA Today quoted Anne Lusk, research fellow at Harvard School of Public Health, as saying, “This research shows that both brisk walking and biking can help prevent weight gain .”

Research details
Researchers studied over 18,000 premenopausal women enrolled in the longitudinal study of women’s health called the Nurses’ Health Study.

The 16-year long research (1989 to 2005) included women aged 25 to 42, and assessed them from questionnaires completed by them on their health, exercise, and living habits.

Evaluation revealed that women who did exercises similar to biking or brisk walking for 30 minutes each day over the study-period either maintained their weight, or lost a few pounds.

Researchers further found that initially, 50 percent of women spent time slow-walking, and 39 percent reportedly spent time walking briskly. Additionally, 48 percent rode a bicycle.

During the year 2005, subjects reportedly spent more time brisk-walking, some time on slow-walking, and the least on bicycling.

In addition, the average time spent sitting at home was five times the total activity.

Other findings
Researchers found that on average, subjects gained about 20 pounds (9.3 kilograms) over the study-period.

However, women who did not bicycle at the study’s beginning but increased the activity by 2005 had lesser tendency of weight-gain, even if they were riding for five minutes a day.

Also, the greater the bicycling duration, lesser the weight gain, stated researchers.

Comparison revealed that women who initially bicycled for over 15 minutes but reduced it by study’s end gained more weight.

Besides, normal-weight women bicycling for over four hours a week by 2005 had lesser chances of gaining more than five percent of their standard body weight, compared to those who reported no bicycling.

Regarding the results, study-colleague Rania Mekary from Harvard was quoted by The Times of India as saying, “Women with excess weight appeared to benefit the most.”

“The benefits of brisk walking, bicycling and other activities were significantly stronger among overweight and obese women compared with lean women, whereas slow walking continued to show no benefit even among overweight and obese women,” Sify News cited study authors as saying.

The study appears in Archives of Internal Medicine.