Is It Better to Walk or Run?
By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS
[1] Walking and running are the most popular physical activities for American
adults. But whether one is preferable to the other in terms of improving health has long
been debated. Now a variety of new studies that pitted running directly against walking
are providing some answers. Their conclusion? It depends almost completely on what
[5] you are hoping 5 to accomplish.
If, for instance, you are looking to control your weight, running wins, going
away. In a study published last month in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, and
unambiguously titled “Greater Weight Loss From Running than Walking,” researchers
combed survey data from 15,237 walkers and 32,215 runners enrolled in the National
[10] Runners and Walkers Health Study — a large survey being conducted at Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California.
Participants were asked about their weight, waist circumference, diets and
typical weekly walking or running mileage both when they joined the study, and then
again up to six years later. The runners almost uniformly were thinner than the walkers
[15] when each joined the study. And they stayed that way throughout. Over the years, the
runners maintained their body mass and waistlines far better than the walkers.
The difference was particularly notable among participants over 55. Runners in
this age group were not running a lot and generally were barely expending more calories
per week during exercise than older walkers. But their body mass indexes and waist
[20] circumferences remained significantly lower than those of age-matched walkers.
Why running should better aid weight management than walking is not
altogether clear. It might seem obvious that running, being more strenuous than
walking, burns more calories per hour. And that’s true. But in the Berkeley study and
others, when energy expenditure was approximately matched — when walkers head out
[25] for hours of rambling and burn the same number of calories over the course of a week
as runners — the runners seem able to control their weight better over the long term.
One reason may be running’s effect on appetite, as another intriguing, if small,
study suggests. In the study, published last year in the Journal of Obesity, nine
experienced female runners and 10 committed female walkers reported to the exercise
[30] physiology lab at the University of Wyoming on two separate occasions. On one day,
the groups ran or walked on a treadmill for an hour. On the second day, they all rested
for an hour. Throughout each session, researchers monitored their total energy
expenditure. They also drew blood from their volunteers to check for levels of certain
hormones related to appetite.
[35] After both sessions, the volunteers were set free in a room with a laden buffet
and told to eat at will. The walkers turned out to be hungry, consuming about 50
calories more than they had burned during their hour-long treadmill stroll. The runners,
on the other hand, picked at their food, taking in almost 200 calories less than they had
burned while running.
[40] Of course, few walkers match the energy expenditure of runners. 40 “It’s fair to say
that, if you plan to expend the same energy walking as running, you have to walk about
one and a half times as far and that it takes about twice as long,” said Paul T. Williams,
a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories and the lead author of all of
the studies involving the surveys of runners and walkers.
[45] On the other hand, people who begin walking are often more unhealthy than
those who start running, and so their health benefits from the exercise can be
commensurately greater. “It bears repeating that either walking or running is healthier
than not doing either,” Dr. Williams said, whatever your health goals.
Adapted from http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/is-it-better-to-walk-orrun/? ref=health May 29, 2013
The author’s main purpose in this text is to