Study: Bicycling Helps Control Weight

Bicycling, like brisk walking, can help women to control their weight, a study finds. The study included more than 18,000 women who had not yet reached menopause. They were part of the long-running Nurses’ Health Study. The women were asked about weight and exercise habits in 1989 and again in 2005. Most women gained weight during the study. The average was 20 pounds. Women who didn’t bicycle in 1989, but started later, gained less weight than other women. Cycling especially helped overweight or obese women to gain less. The longer women biked in a typical week, the less weight they gained. But women who decreased cycling time as the years went by gained more weight. The study appeared in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine. HealthDay News and Reuters Health news service wrote about it June 28.