Couples Are Likely To Get Healthy If They Exercise Together: Study

Researchers in the UK have found that when men and women work together to kick their unhealthy habits, they become healthier. A new study shows that when couples try to stop smoking or to lose weight together, they were said to have successful outcomes. The study was published on Jan 19 in JAMA Internal Medicine, an international journal with research for practitioners in general internal medicine.

Researchers observed data from more than 3,700 couples in the UK who were either living together or were married. The participants were part of a long-term study which was related to ageing. As a part of the study, the participants completed questionnaires related to their personal health behaviours for a span of four years.

The effect of the decision of one partner on the other was observed by the researchers with respect to three health behaviours, namely smoking, exercising and losing 5 percent of body weight. It was found that when one person changes his or her behaviour, the partner was making efforts to do the same over the same period of time.

This behaviour was compared to those couples in which one partner was already leading a healthy life. In couple where one of them was a consistently healthy partner, the difference was made only when it came to quitting smoking or leading a more active lifestyle. But it was found that it had no impact on weight loss.

The researchers found that when an overweight person had a partner who had no issues with their weight, there was going to be not much of a difference; but in cases when both the partners have a weight problem, there was success in terms of weight loss. When one partner lost weight, it was found that it was three times more likely that the other partner losing weight was three times.

Jane Wardle, the director of the health behaviour research centre at the University College London and a psychology professor, said that the study showed that changing habits together was associated with better outcomes when compared to having a partner who has a healthy lifestyle consistently. She said that their study did not address the reasons for the success and so were unable to come to a conclusion for that. She was of the belief that sharing the issue as well as providing support could have been the reasons that couples were successful when they worked out together.

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