Passage Five

　　Is it possible to be both fat and fit-not just fit enough to exercise, but fit enough to live as long as someone a lot lighter? Not according to a 2004 study from the Harvard School of Public Health which looked at 115,000 nurses aged between 30 and 55. Compared with women who were both thin and active, obese(overweight) but active women had a mortality rate that was 91﹪ higher. Though far better than the inactive obese (142% higher), they were still worse off than the inactive lean (5% higher). A similar picture emerged in 2008 after researchers examined 39,000 women with an average age of 54. Compared with active women of normal weight, the active but overweight were 54% more likely to develop heart disease.

　　That’s settled, then. Or is it? Steven Blair, a professor of exercise science at the University of South Carolina, describes the official focus on obesity as an “obsession… and it’s not grounded in solid data”.

　　Blair’s most fascinating study, in the Journal of American Medical Association in 2007, took 2,600 people aged 60 and above, of various degrees of fatness, and tested their fitness on the exercise device, rather than asking them to quantify it themselves. This is an unusually rigorous approach, he claims. Since many rival surveys ask participants to assess their own fitness, or ignore it as a factor altogether.

　　“There is an ‘a(chǎn)ssociation’ between obesity and fitness,” he agrees, “but it is not perfect. As you progress towards overweight, the percentage of individuals who are fit does go down. But here’s a shock: among classⅡ obese individuals [with a body mass index between 35 and 39.9], about 40% or 45% are still fit. You simply cannot tell by looking whether someone is fit or not. When we look at these mortality rates in fat people who are fit, we see that the harmful effect of fat just disappears: their death rate during the next decade is half that of the normal weight people who are unfit.”

　　One day-probably about a hundred years from now-this fat-but-fit question will be answered without the shadow of a doubt. In the meantime, is there anything that all the experts agree on? Oh yes: however much your body weighs, you’ll live longer if you move it around a bit.

　　55. It can be learned that the 2008 research .

　　A. posed a challenge to the 2004 study

　　B. confirmed the findings of the 2004 study

　　C. solved the problems left behind by the 2004 study

　　D. had a different way of thinking from the 2004 study

　　56. Steven Blair probably describes the previous studies as .

　　A. unreliable B. uncreative C. unrealistic D. untraditional

　　57. The major difference between Blair’s study and the previous research is that .

　　A. Blair excluded the participants’ fitness as a factor

　　B. Blair guessed the participants’ fitness after weighing them

　　C. Blair required the participants to assess their own fitness

　　D. Blair evaluated the participants’ fitness through physical tests

　　58. Blair’s study proves that .

　　A. the weight problem should be taken seriously

　　B. weight and fitness are strongly connected

　　C. it is possible to be both fat and fit

　　D. fat people have a higher death rate

　　59. It can be seen from the description of these studies that the author .

　　A. shows no preference for any researcher

　　B. finds no agreement between the researchers

　　C. obviously favors the Blair study

　　D. obviously favors the Harvard study

　　60. The purpose of writing this passage is to .

　　A. call on people to pay attention to weight problem

　　B. present the different findings of various weight studies

　　C. compare the strength and weakness of different studies

　　D. offer suggestions on how to remain fit and live longer

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