Time Magazine's recent cover article, Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin, is not the message to send to a nation with 60% of its population struggling with overfattness. The American College of Sports Medicine has swiftly responded in it's alway high brow scientific manner free of the pressure to report shocking headlines to sell itself. Exercise is an essential part of health, weight loss and maintenance. Over 50 years of research has earned compelling evidence to support this. The author of the Time Magazine article, John Cloud, has been a reporter for 12 years and does not appear to have ANY scientific title. His oversized blog account of personal weight loss trials has effectively served one purpose; shocking print media. He more than likely misquoted the one scientist he contacted for the piece. Eric Ravussin, chair in diabetes and metabolism at Louisiana State University, published a study in 2008 on the Effect of Calorie Restriction with or without Exercise on Body Composition and Fat Distribution. He concluded that "exercise plays an equivalent role to CR in terms of energy balance; however, it can also improve aerobic fitness, which has other important cardiovascular and metabolic implications." It is difficult to believe that he said "In general, for weight loss, exercise is pretty useless," for Time.
As an exercise physiologist who has used exercise to manage disease, injury and weight for the last 12 years I'd like to leave folks with one anecdotal point. People find a way to reward themselves with food whether it was a good workout, good grades or good sex for that matter. I'd like to ask Mr. Cloud if he is the leading expert on deciphering between the psychological and physiological sensation of hunger. Years of research and collaboration from physical and psychological sciences and still have little understanding of how this works. I guess we need a degree in shock media and 12 years experience in irresponsible journalism!
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