Controversy - Is it always worth it? A response to Time Magazine's Weight Loss Article

You may or may not have read Time Magazine's article Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin. For those of you who haven't read it, here's the link: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914857,00.html.

Again, I apologize for directing traffic to Time's website, but I feel it is warranted in this case.

This article has seen a lot of retaliation - my colleague Cliff Harvey wrote a great piece on the Human Motion Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=9882&post=39794&uid=8244761855#post39794.

So without further adieu, here is my response:

Well put Cliff. Obviously, there is some emotion in that post...and rightfully so. I can just see Cliff sitting down and typing that out...in 4 minutes. I don't know that I've read something that has had such a huge response in the online community. Controversy is what some writers go after; it gets attention and thus, gets more people reading and talking about it. So, well done John Cloud, you've probably earned yourself a lofty Christmas bonus from Time Magazine's head honcho.

Now John, I'm not sure if you are aware but we are currently in an obesity EPIDEMIC. Your very own Surgeon General claims that the “most pressing issue” before him and America today is not terrorism, but obesity. The only comparison that I can fittingly come up with would be an Alcoholics Anonymous mentor walking into their meeting and announcing, "Well everyone, we've been going about it all wrong. Booze is the answer to all our problems". I am really getting sick of reading and watching media coverage of what our society really wants to hear – the 1 in 50 studies that show McDonalds actually decreases strokes, or watching more TV gets kids to think critically. This may seem humorous to you but this is what gets published in mainstream newspapers and broad-casted on newscasts. And, sadly, this is exactly what Time Magazine – a magazine that millions upon millions of overweight or obese individuals read – has done.

I could fall back to my strength and conditioning background to criticise the author about how he “exercises”. I could ask him what the hell a “body wedge” class is. I could ask him why his training doesn’t involve anything that resembles high intensity. I could ask him if he even knows what a weight is. I could ask him if he is surprised that yoga and pilates doesn’t get rid of his “gut”. But I won’t ask him about these key ingredients of exercise for weight loss. Instead, I’ll retreat back to my previous point: What the hell kind of message are we trying to send? Sure, people need to be their own judge on issues they face. And sure, it’s not your (Mr. Cloud’s) fault that people would actually believe that “fiery spurts of vigorous exercise could lead to weight gain”. But for the love of anything that is willing to listen, that doesn’t mean you use that as an excuse to publish a message that attacks the notion that exercise is beneficial for weight loss or health.

The funny thing is this article actually has a paradoxical message that I can’t entirely disagree with: While knocking out exercise in the first round in the Battle Royal of weight loss, the article actually brings nutrition to the fore-front as the major determinant of weight loss. Now, the notion that exercise on its own does not help with weight loss is no hidden secret. Fitness professionals would be lying if they claimed that their program was all a person needed to lose weight. However, like Dr. John Berardi pointed out in his response to this article, there has been huge success - both research and anecdotal evidence - when combining sound nutrition and a proper high-intensity exercise program for weight loss. There is no doubt that nutrition is the major player here. However, like Cliff Harvey said, it’s not necessarily the amount of food, but the quality of food that is the concern. This combined with exercise programs that involve low intensity steady-state cardio and no weight training, is a huge reason why the “research” that Cloud pointed out did not yield any weight loss success. Not to mention that body composition was rarely taken into account during these studies.

Cloud is right, we see this all the time at the gym we train out of: People drive to the gym, jump on the elliptical for 45 minutes at the same low speed while talking to their friend, and then head on down to Tim Horton’s for a “well-deserved” iced-cap and doughnut.

The message that I take the most issue with, however, is informing people that exercise is a negative thing:

“Yes, it's entirely possible that those of us who regularly go to the gym would weigh even more if we exercised less.”

“In general, for weight loss, exercise is pretty useless”

“Exercise, in other words, isn't necessarily helping us lose weight. It may even be making it harder.”

“Could pushing people to exercise more actually be contributing to our obesity problem? In some respects, yes.”

“You should exercise to improve your health, but be warned: fiery spurts of vigorous exercise could lead to weight gain. I love how exercise makes me feel, but tomorrow I might skip the VersaClimber — and skip the blueberry bar that is my usual post-exercise reward.”

The author mentions a couple health benefits of exercise (which, I might add should take up this entire page), but it is in a matter-of-fact kind of way. It is as if weight loss is more important than overall health. It just absolutely pains me to read something like this when, as a 26 year old, I am hearing about a family member or friend’s parent passing away prematurely, due to a heart attack, stroke or some other disease related to physical inactivity and nutrition.

I realize that I can be quite harsh sometimes; I often criticize people for not making changes to their lifestyle that we KNOW will instantly improve their health and well-being. But, after reading articles like this, I can’t entirely blame people.

Cloud points out that we should re-define “exercise” and suggests that we shouldn’t be pushing ourselves so hard because it drains our energy, encourages us to eat more, and forces us to do less low-level activities. First off, you can still train relatively hard 2-3 days/week and see big increases in fitness level and health, while allowing your body to regenerate in between sessions. Similarly, walking more or just being outside can still be done with this style of training without feeling as though you have no energy. And, of course we are going to get hungry after exercising but that doesn’t mean we get an extra “stupid” button to press so that we continually force crap food into our bodies.

Lastly, I think this last quote sums up the author’s background and health knowledge:

“Some research has found that the obese already "exercise" more than most of the rest of us. In May, Dr. Arn Eliasson of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center reported the results of a small study that found that overweight people actually expend significantly more calories every day than people of normal weight — 3,064 vs. 2,080.”

That’s odd, I would have thought that an overweight or obese individual would be very efficient at moving and wouldn’t take that much energy in calories to move from A to B. Cripes. While it is true that muscle requires more energy than fat to function, overweight individuals are going to have larger bodies – which include larger muscles and organs – than “normal” weight individuals. So, to cite this reference as a “proof” that we should be exercising less is both unjustified and morally irresponsible.

TIME, you should be ashamed to have fallen victim to the appealing nature of controversy at the expense of people’s health. This is one topic that can’t afford to encourage inactivity, not at the rate we’re going.