A new study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine proves that constant exercise does not help you lose weight if you eat unhealthy. Irrespective of how much you exercise you can still be fat due to the carbs and sugar which you consume. Moreover you can have a normal weight and still be unhealthy because of the food which you consume. This can change our whole perspective on what being healthy means.
Aseem Malhotra, science director for Action on Sugar and cardiologist at Frimley Park Hospital, explained that not lack of exercise causes obesity. According to the study the levels of physical activity have remained the same during the past three decades, whereas obesity rates have boomed.
Exercise has indeed many benefits on health. It reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases, dementia and several types of cancers by 30% or more. However exercise has no impact on weight loss. The authors of the study remarked that obesity is only one of the problems. It seems that a poor diet has more harmful effects than drinking, smoking and inadequate physical activity put together. According to the Lancet Global Burden of Disease research 40 percent of people who have normal body weight will experience metabolic abnormalities normally linked to obesity such as dyslipidemia, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and liver disease not related to alcohol.
A very important factor which makes this problem worse is the fact that people are always made to believe that sedentariness or lack of physical activity is the main cause of obesity. Instead of sending effective messages regarding health and diet, the Public Relations system of the Food Industry conveys the wrong message that a healthy weight is kept by counting calories.
Sara N. Bleich from the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (Baltimore) said that what people should remember is the fact that what really matters when it comes to weight loss is what you consume, not how much you try to work it off.
While advertising promotes the idea that carbohydrates are beneficial for us it is difficult for people to completely change their food psychology. The way foods are advertised should be changed in order for people to understand the reality.
The authors of the study concluded:
“It is time to wind back the harms caused by the junk food industry’s Public Relations machinery. Let us bust the myth of physical inactivity and obesity. You cannot outrun a bad diet.”
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