Would You Rather Gain 10 Pounds or Rack Up $10,000 in Debt?

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Quick, what's your answer?

How about 50 pounds vs. $10K in debt? Read on to find out how many  agree with you.

Would you rather take on $10,000 worth of debt or gain 10 pounds?

According to a new survey from Yahoo! Health and Reader’s Digest, 78 percent of Americans would rather have the extra padding than the whopping debt.

However, 22 percent said they would take the debt over an extra 10 pounds. When the weight increased to 50 pounds, almost half of the 2,000 survey respondents (46 percent) said they would rather gain weight to avoid debt.

Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money, but the findings are somewhat surprising considering that two in five adults surveyed were currently trying to lose weight — and past surveys have revealed that dieters are willing to go to extremes to slim down. Last year, a British survey found that a full third of young women would give up a year of their lives to lose weight.

Yahoo! Health and Reader’s Digest also probed survey respondent’s healthy habits. Seventy-one percent were of the opinion that exercise is the best way to lose weight, though experts generally say that cutting calories through diet is a more effective way to lose weight than simply exercising.

Beyond exercise, 61 percent of people thought that eating in moderation was an effective way to trim pounds (true), along with drinking a lot of water (also true), restricting calories (your best bet), and not eating out regularly (usually true).

The majority of people surveyed regularly perform cardio exercise, but less than half were strength training, though building muscles through weight lifting can boost bone health, increase metabolism, and help fight disease. Most adults agreed that cardio burns the most fat, and they might be right — studies have shown that running or other cardio exercise is more effective in shedding belly fat than weight training. When working out, 29 percent of adults said they push themselves a lot while 59 percent admitted to only pushing themselves a little. Men and younger adults (ages 18 to 49) were the most likely to work hard at the gym.

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When it comes to weight-loss motivation, 62 percent of women said wanting to be more attractive is what fuels their weight loss while 50 percent said they started trying to lose weight after seeing a bad picture of themselves. Respondents’ top reason for weight loss overall was to get or feel healthy and wanting more energy.

 

Would you rather gain weight or take on debt? Sound off in the comments below.

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