Is It Better to Walk or Run?
步行好，还是跑步好?
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 you are hoping to accomplish.
步行和跑步是最受美国成年人欢迎的运动项目。然而究竟是走还是跑更利于健康，人们一直争论不休。最近有不少直接比较跑步与步行的新研究给我们提供了一些答案。他们的结论是?——到底谁更好，基本上完全取决于你的期望。
If, for instance, you are looking to control your weight — and shallowly or not, I am — 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 Runners and Walkers Health Study — a large survey being conducted at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif.
假如你想减重——无论肤浅与否——跑步更胜一筹，而且大比分领先。今年4月发表在《体育医学与科学》(Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise)上的一篇文章清楚明白地打着这样一行标题：《跑步比步行更利于减重》(Greater Weight Loss From Running than Walking)。研究者梳理了参与“全国跑步与步行健康研究”的15237名步行者和32215名跑步者的调查数据。该大型调查由加州伯克利市劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室(Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)进行。
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.
参与者在调查开始时汇报了自己的体重、腰围、饮食习惯和通常每周或走或跑的英里数，六年后再次汇报以上数据的变化。
The runners almost uniformly were thinner than the walkers 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.
跑步者在调查初期就普遍比步行者瘦，而且之后一直保持。几年下来，跑步者在控制体重指数和腰围方面远比步行者强。
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 circumferences remained significantly lower than those of age-matched walkers.
这种差异在55岁以上的参与者中尤其明显。此年龄段的跑步者并不进行大量跑步锻炼，也不比同龄步行者每周消耗的卡路里多。但他们的体重指数和腰围显著比同龄步行者低。
Why running should better aid weight management than walking is not altogether clear. It might seem obvious that running, being more strenuous then 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 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.
为什么跑步比步行更有助于控制体重，原因尚未可知。虽然看似很明显，跑步比步行强度大，每小时燃烧的卡路里更多——这是事实。然而，在上述及其他调查研究中，两种人的能量消耗持平——步行者每周走上好多个小时，与跑步者燃烧同样卡路里——那么跑步者似乎真的能在长期内更好地控制体重。
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 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.
一个小而有意思的研究发现，其中一个原因可能是跑步对食欲的影响。怀俄明大学(University of Wyoming)运动生理学实验室研究了两次不同实验中，9名有经验的女性跑步者和10名长期坚持步行锻炼的女性的身体状况。第一天，参与者在跑步机上或跑或走锻炼一小时。第二天，她们一起休息一小时。在每天的实验中，研究者都全程监控她们的能量消耗，并抽取血样，检测与食欲有关的激素。研究去年发表在《肥胖症》(The Journal of Obesity)杂志上。
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