by Alison Fry
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15 Sept, 2024
If you are overweight and have knee pain, here is some encouraging news: you don’t have to lose a great deal of weight to make a significant difference in your pain level. Although moving toward a healthy weight should always be your goal, the fact is, losing just a couple of pounds could improve your knee pain significantly. And losing just a little bit of weight can have a positive ripple effect: if you have less knee pain, you may find it easier to exercise and continue to lose weight and improve your health. One Pound Off the Body = Four Pounds Off the Knees! In 2005, researchers found that if an overweight or obese person with knee osteoarthritis loses one pound, that equates to four pounds of pressure taken off the knees. That means losing just 5 pounds will take 20 pounds of pressure off your knees. Increase that to 10 pounds, which feels achievable to most people, and you’ve just removed a full 40 pounds of pressure off your knees.