The comparison of the effects of lifestyle activity and structured cardiovascular exercise on obesity-related risk factors of African-American women ages 22–55

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of lifestyle activity modification (LA) and structured exercise (Cardio) on obesity-related factors in sedentary African American women. Subjects were randomized to a control group, a Cardio group, or LA group for a twelve week intervention. The study examined the intervention effects on physical activity patterns, blood lipids, glucose & insulin response, blood pressure, cardiovascular fitness and body composition.

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) for pre-post differences in the dependent variables revealed significant baseline differences between groups for LDL cholesterol only. Thus, pre-post treatment differences for LDL were assessed using an ANCOVA model, with baseline LDL as the covariate. Significant pre-post effects were observed for cardiorespiratory fitness (p = 0.024), physical activity level (p=0.000), total cholesterol (p=0.006), and HDL cholesterol (p=0.017). Significant pre-post by treatment condition interaction effects were observed for body weight (p=0.001), body composition (percent body fat) (p<0.001), and cardiorespiratory fitness (predicted VO₂max) (p=0.024). Although post-hoc analysis failed to reveal significant differences among groups, there were slight trends (which merit further investigation) toward decreasing obesity-related risk within the 2 activity groups, when compared to Control.