Exercise not key to 'obesity fight' « CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum

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Exercise not key to 'obesity fight'

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Started 9 years ago by paddyirish
Latest reply from Tulyar

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paddyirish
Member

Interesting

Yet another study which has been interpreted (possibly by journalists) that there is one magic bullet.

100% agree that reduction in sugars and carbs is one key aspect for a healthier life. I am an overweight cyclist who definitely eats too much rubbish, so know I ought to fix that.

Also do not trust the food and drink industry to regulate itself in the public interest.

However, IMO, it is very dangerous to belittle activity and exercise. Personally speaking, with few, if any, changes in my diet, I have lost a lot of girth, and some weight, due to cycling. I know one person's experience is statistically insignificant, but there will be more like me.

The mental health benefits of exercise have been ignored there as well.

Posted 9 years ago #
steveo
Member

There is probably an element of this. All the exercise in the world won't help if your diet is sugar and empty carbs.

After a cycle or a run you'd massively over compensate with out a decent diet.

But a good diet doesn't make one healthy, a person who eats a balanced diet and can't walk up a set of stairs because of an unfit CV system is worse off than someone who can cycle 100km and is still carrying 20kg of extra weight.

Posted 9 years ago #
Min
Member

I agree but I also kind of agree with the article and they did say at the start that exercise has other health benefits.

She said the industry was encouraging a balanced diet by voluntarily providing clear on-pack nutrition information and offering products with extra nutrients and less salt, sugar and fat.

That sounds horrible. IMO the key is eating fewer "products" and more food. :-/

Posted 9 years ago #
HankChief
Member

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Posted 9 years ago #
dougal
Member

Notice how all the disagreeing voices are in fact talking about something else?

The journal doesn't anywhere mention people stopping exercise but the NICE spokesman says it would be "idiotic" to stop exercise - something which was never suggested in the first place.

The industry spokesman is just so much flim-flam. "A healthy lifestyle will include both a balanced diet and exercise" except nobody's interested in the definition of a healthy lifestyle as this conversation is specifically about fighting obesity. You can say that the BBC Proms is part of a healthy lifestyle but that doesn't mean it will make you slim.

Posted 9 years ago #
dougal
Member

The whole conversation reminds me of *cough* helmets versus infrastructure...

Posted 9 years ago #
neddie
Member

Exercise does tend to make you ravenous. The danger is then you don't stop eating when you stop exercising e.g. when you go on holiday.

For me, exercise keeps the mind healthy and makes you feel good about yourself - so that you don't feel the need to be constantly snacking or overeating.

Also, it takes a lot of cycling to burn off the 150kcals in a choc bar... Much easier to cut intake than to up the expenditure

Posted 9 years ago #
DaveC
Member

The only reason I excercise is to be able to eat what I want!

On the subject of exercise advice by doctors, when I went to the heart specialist about a case of atrial fibrilation (very brief periods, 1/2 a second, of increased heart rate, every minute or so, over a 12 hour period) even he was very reluctant to suggect I stop excercise until I had had a heart ultrascan and 24 hour monitoring test.*

* He did suggest I did not do any very long bike rides though.

Posted 9 years ago #
fimm
Member

@DaveC did you mention to him that his idea of a "very long" bike ride and yours might be rather different...?
;-)

(Hope you are OK now)

Posted 9 years ago #
kaputnik
Moderator

"A balanced diet"

I think that's industryspeak for going large at McDonalds but ordering diet coke.

Posted 9 years ago #
paddyirish
Member

@eddie_h

"Exercise does tend to make you ravenous. The danger is then you don't stop eating when you stop exercising"

This- I eat as much, maybe more on the days I WFH and don't do any cycling

Posted 9 years ago #
unhurt
Member

Not convinced that trying to sell exercise as a weight loss tool was ever very encouraging anyway - to me that characterises physical activity as a chore that you suffer through to acquire an "acceptable" body. That was genuinely offputting to me throughout my 20s and early 30s (despite working outside for much of the latter part of that time in a physically demanding job). 75% of the reason I cycle is because it's enjoyable (25% is convenience and/or "Oooh, Shiny Stuff") and that's the basis on which I try to ~~indoctrinate~~ encourage other people to join in*.

*well, that and the whole 'livable cities/ neighbourhoods' thing if the audience seems receptive

Posted 9 years ago #
Greenroofer
Member

@kaputnik - true story from several years ago. I idly read the 'Healthy Eating' leaflet in McDonalds and choked on my Big Mac when it said something along the lines of "It's important to have a varied and balanced diet, so have something different every time you come to McDonalds"

Posted 9 years ago #
HankChief
Member

I had a uni lecture where they took the McDonald's menu and the BMA'S daily nutritional advise and tried to find the cheapest way to adhere to the guidelines.

I forget the specifics but the answer was something link

1 Big Mac
1 Fish burger
27 free tomato ketchup (not sure if they are still free)

(Definitely not to be actually tried)

Posted 9 years ago #
neddie
Member

27 free tomato ketchup would almost certainly take you over your RDA sugar guideline

Posted 9 years ago #
HankChief
Member

I might have over egged the ketchup - it was a long time ago. The rules were then adjusted to no more than 2 ketchup per portion of fries and a more sensible (sic.) result was achieved.

Posted 9 years ago #
paddyirish
Member

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Posted 9 years ago #
steveo
Member

I was thinking off this while walking home.

As Shakespeare said: "The chocolate bar is twice blessed, first in the consumption and second in freedom which commeth in riding it off

Posted 9 years ago #
Charlethepar
Member

Was thinking about this at the office yesterday. Observed that most of the people who cycle to my office are pretty trim. Many of those who drive are really fat. Perhaps it it just a coincidence.

Posted 9 years ago #
PS
Member

I've not really read many or much the various articles on this (I'm adopting the approach that I'm a "correct" weight and fit with it, and don't find any of it "a chore", so whatever I'm doing works for me), but I'm assuming that the study's primary purpose is to test the food & drinks industry's claim that drinking their fizzy pop/processed choke&puke is not a problem as long as you exercise? And they've found that eating and drinking that stuff ain't great, even if you do exercise (to whatever "normal" extent they define this)? Seems fair enough to me.

Posted 9 years ago #
steveo
Member

I expect part of the problem is that you and I have a different definition of normal and that both those definitions are massively more than that of the general public.

Posted 9 years ago #
PS
Member

I suspect you are right, steveo. "Normal" levels of activity must have been in decline for tens of decades.

Posted 9 years ago #
Greenroofer
Member

I have developed an unhealthy habit of watching archive films from the first half of the 20th Century about locomotive building and railway maintenance. What is striking about the films (apart from the complete absence of any meaningful PPE, and how everyone wears flat caps, jackets and ties) is how thin everyone is. The men all look wiry: all muscle and sinew and not an ounce of fat, from doing extreme physical work for years. It was particularly striking on a film about a permanent way gang, where every member of the gang weighed little more than half of what their equivalents do now but probably did significantly harder manual work than today's machine drivers.

Posted 9 years ago #
SRD
Moderator

interesting - Carlton Reid's pointing out that no other news sources are covering this, even though they all covered original publication.

http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/exercise-doesn-t-combat-obesity-study-suspended-by-journal/017813

odd reasons for 'suspension' though. not retraction.

http://retractionwatch.com/2015/05/05/widely-covered-editorial-extolling-importance-of-diet-over-exercise-temporarily-removed/

Posted 8 years ago #
Arellcat
Moderator

The men all look wiry: all muscle and sinew and not an ounce of fat, from doing extreme physical work for years.

And perhaps none more physical than the fireman. You never saw a fat fireman; they were all wiry guys. But once you were worn out you could get promoted to engine driver, and all those fried eggs and bacon cooked on a shovel tended to catch up with you.

Posted 8 years ago #
neddie
Member

From the BikeBiz article:

The only country [in Europe] where obesity is not rising is the Netherlands, a country where cycling is still a major mode of day to day transport.

Posted 8 years ago #
gembo
Member

When I was a young punk I could lose weight by not eating as much or by exercising, now I would have to do both?

Posted 8 years ago #
Uberuce
Member

The Life Scientific recently met with one of the head obesity honchos for the government.
Among her many bits of research was to examine the theory that there is something more to weight loss than "kCal in < kCal out".

This is not a theory any physicistly inclined person can look at without wanting to Hulk out and hit the people that believe it over the head with a suitably giant book on the laws of thermodynamics, but it's been remarkable hard to squash in practise.

So, a number of very commendably determined volunteers lived for some time in closed cells, where literally every calorie in and out was measured. The exact details collecting data on every calorie excreted are perhaps left off a forum as genteel as this, but I will say that I did use that verb deliberately.

Anyway, there's isn't. Eat less, do more, or both.

Posted 8 years ago #
chdot
Admin

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/11596250/Cost-of-healthy-living-soars-in-developing-world-while-junk-food-gets-cheaper.html

Posted 8 years ago #
Tulyar
Member

The men all look wiry: all muscle and sinew and not an ounce of fat, from doing extreme physical work for years.

And perhaps none more physical than the fireman. You never saw a fat fireman; they were all wiry guys. But once you were worn out you could get promoted to engine driver, and all those fried eggs and bacon cooked on a shovel tended to catch up with you.

Their was a notable change which I think was picked up in railway medical exams, when drivers and firemen transferred diesel and electric traction and a whole raft of changes in their medical state appeared.

Posted 8 years ago #

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