Want to keep the weight off? Get on your bike 想減肥？騎單車吧

 ◎陳成良

Just five minutes of riding a bicycle each day can help a younger woman keep the pounds off, U.S. researchers have reported in a study offering one potentially easy way to help Americans slim down.
只要每天騎單車5分鐘，就能幫助年輕女性減輕體重，美國研究人員指出。這項研究提供一個潛在的簡單方法協助美國人瘦身。
The heaviest women benefited the most, the team at the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston reported. "Small daily increments in bicycling helped women control their weight. But the more time women spent bicycling, the better," said Harvard’s Rania Mekary, who worked on the study.
哈佛公共衛生學院和波士頓布萊根婦女醫院的研究團隊發現，體重越重的女性用這種方法減肥受益最多。「每天少量的增加腳踏車運動，能幫助女性控制體重，但女性騎車時間越長越好」，投入這項研究的哈佛學者蘭尼亞．麥卡蘭說。
"Women with excess weight appeared to benefit the most. This is encouraging for women with weight problems because they could substitute bicycling for slow walking or car driving."
「超重的女性看似受益最多，這對有體重問題的女性是一項激勵，因為她們可以將開車或慢走改成騎車。」
The research could help public policymakers trying to find ways to slow the U.S. obesity epidemic, the researchers wrote in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Two-thirds of U.S. adults are overweight or obese and 16 percent of children and adolescents are overweight.
這項研究有助於公共政策制定者，嘗試找出延緩美國人過胖成為流行病的方法，這些研究人員在《內科醫學文獻》期刊中寫道。3分之2的美國成年人過重或過胖，有16%的兒童和青少年過胖。
新聞辭典
obese：形容詞，過胖的；肥胖的。obesity則是名詞，例句：Overweight and obesity are closely linked to type 2 diabetes.（過重和肥胖與第二型糖尿病有密切關係。）
substitute︰動詞，取代、代替。Substitue honey for sugar.（用蜂蜜代替糖。），也可做名詞，替代品。
epidemic：名詞，流行病，指一種疾病在某一地區某一時間內發生，且病例數超過正常預期值。pandemic（大流行），則是指一種傳染病的流行經由人與人間傳播擴散而蔓延至其他地區如一個洲或全世界。