Running and biking are both great ways to work out and burn some calories, but which is best for you? Total calorie burn, joint health, and your willingness to invest in equipment are all factors to consider.

Benefits of Biking
Biking is a low-impact sport that won’t stress your knees, hips and ankles as much as running. It improves your endurance and balance, as you may remember from your first wobbly attempts to learn as a kid. A thirty minute bike ride at a pace of 10 mph will burn about 177 calories. Cycling works the lower body, plus the chest, back, triceps, and core.  If you have any joint or back problems, cycling is probably the best bet for you.

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Men and women who are very large around the middle are at much greater risk of dying from any cause than people with thinner waists, a new study says.

Eric J. Jacobs, PhD, and colleagues at the Atlanta-based American Cancer Society, examined associations between waist circumference and the risk of death in 48,500 men and 56,343 women aged 50 and older.

They found that people with very large waists — 47 inches or more for men and 42 inches and more in women — were about twice as likely to die, compared to thinner people, and not just from weight-related problems.

All participants had completed a mailed questionnaire about demographic, medical, and behavior factors and provided information about weight and waist circumference during the 1990s.

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Dancers have some of the most enviable bodies, with their long and lithe limbs, their sculpted muscles and amazing strength. In fact, ballet and other dance forms have been the inspiration for many workouts, including the Tracy Anderson method, Pure Barre and Kettlenetics.

But just like any well-trained athlete, dancers’ bodies are challenged by working the same muscle groups with the same set of moves over and over again. Whet

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More Americans are becoming obese. Obesity rates inched up 1.1% between 2007 and 2009, according to a new report released by the CDC.

In just the past two years, 2.4 million people have joined the ranks of the obese. About 72.5 million U.S. adults are now obese, the report found. That’s 26.7% of the population, compared to 25.6% in 2007.

Some states are more affected than others, says Thomas R. Frieden, MD, MPH, director of the CDC, who presented the data at a teleconference Tuesday. “The number of states where self-reported obesity is 30% or higher has tripled, from three to nine.”

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