Follow spouse to enhance your fitness levels

Do not look for a personal trainer, state-of-the-art gym or weight-loss treatment if you want to shed those extra kilos around your belly. Just follow the footsteps of your exercise-loving partner and enhance your fitness levels!

According to lead investigator Laura Cobb from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and co-author Silvia Koton from the Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine, if one spouse improves his or her exercise regimen, the other spouse is much more likely to follow suit.

"The study tells that spouses can have a positive impact on one another in terms of staying fit and healthy over time," Koton said.

For the study, they examined records from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study, which in 1987 began following a group of 15,792 middle-aged adults from communities in Maryland, North Carolina, Minnesota and Mississippi.

Koton and her colleagues analysed data from two medical visits conducted roughly six years apart. At each visit, the researchers asked 3,261 spouse pairs about their physical activity levels.

Six years later, they found that when a wife met recommended levels of exercise at the first visit, her husband was 70 percent more likely to meet those levels at subsequent visits than those whose wives were less physically active.

Likewise, when a husband met recommended exercise levels, his wife was 40 percent more likely to meet the levels at follow-up visits.

"Our findings suggest that physical activity promotion efforts should consider targeting couples," Koton noted.

The findings were recently shared at the American Heart Association's "EPI/Lifestyle 2015 Scientific Sessions" in Baltimore.