title: The preventive effect of physical activity on weight maintenance in overweight and obese women.
abstract: Prevalence of obesity has increased recently especially in women. Obesity is related to mortality due to non-communicable diseases and has become a public health issue. Among the two important factors to reduce weight calorie limitation alone is modestly effective in initial weight but can result in weight gain after primary weight reduction is common. Therefore adding physical activity to weight maintenance program can reduce weight gain rebound. The aim of this review article was to identify the preventive effect of physical activity on weight maintenance in overweight women. Articles were selected from PubMed database and screened for the relativity to the study objectives, using scoring systems. Eleven studies were found appropriate. No statistical test was done on the data except simple mean and some descriptive analyses. Physical activity is proved to have a significant effect in weight loss/maintenance both in induction and maintenance period. This effect was more significant in higher intensities. Sever intensity physical activity can be effective in weight maintenance in long term but the effect of moderate and light physical activity could not be evaluated due to lack of data.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Sareh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dashti
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiotherapy Program, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Ali Jafarzadeh
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Esfehani
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiotherapy Program, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
authors.forename: H J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Leonard Joseph
mesh_terms: D015992:Body Mass Index; D001835:Body Weight; D015331:Cohort Studies; D015444:Exercise; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009765:Obesity / Q000628:therapy*; D050177:Overweight / Q000628:therapy*; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D015430:Weight Gain / Q000502:physiology; D015431:Weight Loss