Exercise and Obesity

Now I have to say I think the BBC "People men made us thin" series has been great, and in many ways music to my ears.  

The dogma are:

(1) Eating too much makes you fat.

(2) Exercise makes you thin.

(3) Genes

Do diets make you thin?

(1) They have gone some way to debunk this in the program.  Of course they have taken an extreme attitude.  If you don't eat, you will loose weight, but the psychology of dieting is more complex.  The study designs are difficult too.  So they studies showing diets don't work will usually say "here's a dieter 2 years later and they have put on 10lbs/5Kg, but here is a non-dieter and this person put on zero weight: ergo, dieting doesn't work".

There is a fundamental flaw in this argument though.  The people who diet typically have weight control issues and were always going to put on more weight than people who have never had a problem and never diet!!

So my bottom line would be that dieting is in no way all that it is cracked up to be, but if you are over-weight it is better to try and reduce your calorie intake than to just give up!!

(2) Does exercise make you thin

Again the program takes an extremist view of this issue.  I it is true that exercise is a really slow and relatively ineffective way of loosing weight  ...but it depends on the exercise, and whether it was the only lifestyle change you made.  Really this is a life-style thing.  To simply drive to the gym 3 times a week and burn off a few hundred calories is not going to make a significant contribution to a serious weight problem.  Those few hundred calories could easily be swallowed up just by one post exercise trip to Starbucks.  If you control calories and do more exercise, the exercise will prolong your life and keep you healthier, but really its the calorie-control bit that will knock off the pounds. Turn down that free chocolate bar at the checkout and you have just saved the equivalent of about a two mile run!  

(3) Genes

Your genes profoundly affect your weight.  This is mostly by changing the appetite control systems in your body.  Potentially there are many drugs which could change this, but it's not a great idea just yet, because these drugs tend to do too much other stuff.  ..i.e., "side effects".

All this lot is just the same for your pets too.  It's really important to give a dog a great walk or two every day... but weighing their dinners are the secret of weight control!!

Exercise and Osteoarthritis

 

OK... Now we have a bit of a problem on the osteoarthritis and exercise front.

.........because exercise is good for joints, lack of exercise leads to obesity and is terrible for joints!

.....but its long been believed that traumatic injury (knocks and bangs!) leads to, or exacerbates osteoarthritis, but studies now show that, in rats a least, intensive exercise also contributes to osteoarthritis.  To be honest, a search of the major osteoarthritis journal Osteoarthritis and Cartilage will tell you that there are several similar studies, but this one attracted my attention; Carlos E.S. Franciozi et al 2013.  The tricky thing is that this implies that there is an optimal amount of exercise for you joint health.  How much is that?  Sadly, we just don't know :-(

It seems sensible to conclude that the amount required to stay fit, but no more!  That is bad news for MOST people, because most people either don't exercise at all or exercise massively!  ...me? Well I dog walk.  I don't think anyone has implicate that as hazardous for your joints yet!