Can fitness decrease effects of being fat?

(News Journal) - Which is worse? Being markedly overweight, or being unfit? If you are obese, but physically fit, does it cancel out the health risks of being obese? Some researchers are beginning to study these situations, and preliminary findings were reported in the UC Berkeley Wellness Letter.

These questions defy a simple answer because there are no universally accepted definitions for the terms. Overweight and obesity are usually defined in terms of Body Mass Index, but while this is an easy number to calculate (more about that later), it's an imperfect measure of body fat percentage. Physical fitness means different things to different people. A physically fit dancer will be different from a fit lumberjack or weight-lifter. For research purposes, however, fitness is usually defined as -- cardiovascular or aerobic fitness -- the ability to carry on a vigorous activity for a prolonged period of time.

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