Biking and Walking Best for Weight Loss

Women interested in preventing age-related weight gain should take up biking or walking.
USA Today (6/29, Hellmich) reports, "Women who want to prevent weight gain as they age should hop on a bike or take a brisk walk," discoveries that add "to mounting evidence of the importance of moderate to vigorous exercise for weight control." Those who participated in the Harvard study "gained an average of 20½ pounds over 16 years," but "those who regularly biked or walked briskly were less likely to gain as much."
The "findings are based on the second Harvard Nurses' Health Study, which is tracking 116,608 female nurses who periodically fill out questionnaires about their health, weight, diet and behavior," the New York Times (6/29, D6, Rabin) Vital Signs reports. The "new analysis, published in the June 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, looked at weight change and behavior from 1989 (when the nurses were 25 to 42 years old) to 2005; to isolate the effects of exercise, the researchers controlled for other obesity risk factors."