Last month, Time magazine came out with an article that still has me steaming. It tries to convince the reader that exercise won't help people lose weight, and that it's awful and meaningless. It misrepresents a study done by Dr. Timothy Church from LSU, who actually found in his study that exercise results in weight loss. Dr. Church was interviewed on one of my favorite podcasts, Fitness Rocks, where he explained the study and the importance of exercise.
I have been trying to get over this article and I can't. The information in this article is wrong (So wrong!), and it could affect the health of so many people. The average American is looking for an excuse to not exercise, and John Cloud is giving it to him. I don't know how he can sleep at night.
3 comments:
If it's any consolation, it really bothers me too seeing that sort of thing happen. My understanding is that the research that has been done on the subject shows mixed results (some studies say exercise does lead to weight loss, others that it doesn't). However, it is VERY difficult to design a GOOD experiment for this kind of thing because there are so many confounding factors. In the face of all that, I say along with you that why should anyone promote the idea that exercise does not lead to weight loss and give people an additional excuse to not exercise? Even if it doesn't actually lead to weight loss, it has proven benefit in lower blood pressure and increasing good (HDL) cholesterol, which help to lower the risk of cardiovascular events like heart attacks and strokes. Ok, sorry for the rant.
It's been a while since I read the article, but I didn't think their take-home lesson was that exercise is "meaningless." It even says right on the cover "of course it's good for you."
I thought they were just pointing out why some people struggle to lose weight even when they're exercising--mostly because they then eat what calories they just burned and sometimes even more.
I'm not saying it was a great article, though, or that I agree with it, just that I don't think they were telling the world not to exercise.
Sean, don't be sorry - this is rant-worthy! I ran into a friend of mine tonight and she was lovingly laughing at me and my crusade.
Becky, they didn't straight up tell the world not to exercise, they just made it sound pointless. "In general, for weight loss, exercise is pretty useless," Straight from the article. You know how people are going to react to that. Yes, they did point out that people tend to eat more when they exercise and therefore not lose weight. But then they made it sound like exercising was at fault for this and not overeating or poor choice of diet.
The formula is eat right and exercise. If you don't then there are problems. And anyone who tries to influence people to deviate from these healthy habits needs to have his megaphone taken away.
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