I saw this news article the other day, "Overweight people get less out of exercise". The article comments on a recent study in the Journal of Sports and Conditioning Research. The study compared resistance training in lean versus overweight/obese subjects.
The overweight subjects gained 4 to 17 percent less strength compared to the lean subjects. But I dug deeper, and found that both groups gained the exact same amount of muscle mass. So while the lean group did gain slightly more strength, the overweight group was able to build the same amount of muscle mass - which would increase metabolism, and help to improve body composition over the long term.
Why did the media report focus on the negative strength differential instead of the equal amounts of muscle mass? My guess is that negative headlines attract more attention, and a story with the headline, "Lean and Overweight Have Same Capacity for Muscle Growth," may not have garned as many readers.
Yet by writing the story in this way, the journalists are doing a disservice to those that are overweight. Someone overweight could easily read that headline and think, "see, it doesn't matter if I exercise or not." Those who are overweight need hope, not deflation.
