Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 127 posts

Re: Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

#101

Post by aqme28 »

Someone1234 wrote: post #94
victorhooi wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not agree with your statement. What do you even mean by "normal exercise"? I believe that most "normal" people are capable of doing enough exercise (combined with good eating choices) that they can lose weight. For example, say you have a 1-hour lunch break each day. During that lunch break, you could easily go for a 6km run (30-40 minutes), as well as have time for a shower, and grab food. If you're prepared to…

I'm going to side with the person above you. Exercise is important for a healthy lifestyle, but it won't result in weight loss. The amount of calories burned are trivial. For example: - 30 minute run burns (150 pound individual) burns just 272 calories. - 30 minute lap swim (150 pound individual) burns, again, just 272 calories. A single Milky Way chocolate bar has 240 calories. A Big Mac has 530 calories. A McDonald…

Exercise has a huge effect on BMR, so I don't think your point really works.

Re: Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

#102

Post by collyw »

jokoon wrote: post #29
Matumio wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is that our civilization is built in the idea of comfort and economic specialization. Agree. But in order to change that, we have to change our value system. Worst thing, I'm almost sure that this accumulation of stress can slow down productivity. That's the worst thing? As you can see, productivity is still our highest value. Health and well-being are not worthy goals on their own, but they are p…

> If that's the worst thing, then productivity is still our highest value, and health comes second. But wouldn't better mental health increase productivity ? I mean a healthy horse might be more productive. Of course at some point, maybe better health doesn't increase productivity so much. But I tend to think that cerebral workers would work much better if they have less stress or better mental health.

Do we really need to increase productivity?

Re: Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

#103

Post by king_jester »

victorhooi wrote: post #62
ars wrote: post #2

Normal exercise will not cause weight loss - countless studies have shown that. But it will make you healthier, so it's worth it anyway.

I do not agree with your statement. What do you even mean by "normal exercise"? I believe that most "normal" people are capable of doing enough exercise (combined with good eating choices) that they can lose weight. For example, say you have a 1-hour lunch break each day. During that lunch break, you could easily go for a 6km run (30-40 minutes), as well as have time for a shower, and grab food. If you're prepared to…

> I believe that most "normal" people are capable of doing enough exercise (combined with good eating choices) that they can lose weight.

The point is there is there no set point of "enough" exercise to induce weight loss. It is highly variable between people and it is very unlikely that any individual can keep weight off in this fashion over a period of time. Linking exercise and weight is a time waster and, more importantly, can dissuade people from exercising when they don't achieve an impossible standard for weight loss.

> For example, say you have a 1-hour lunch break each day. During that lunch break, you could easily go for a 6km run (30-40 minutes), as well as have time for a shower, and grab food. If you're prepared to have a faster shower, and eat a quick snack, heck, you could even make it a 10km run (50 minutes).

First of all, the majority of workers do not have hour long lunch breaks. Second, that exercise during the middle of the work day sounds like a great way to ratchet up stress rather than be relaxing since now you are stuck in a time management game. This isn't an appropriate approach for everyone.

> Either way, I personally know many ordinary people who manage to get a healthy amount of exercise, and achieve their weight goals.

Again, this notion of a "healthy amount" of exercise is a fiction w.r.t. weight loss.

> I also have a friend who quite honestly, eats what seems to be an incredibly unhealthy mix - think large amounts of junk food and deep-fried fast food. However, they manage to stay reasonably slim (think BMI 18) by doing insane amounts of exercise (several hours a day). So it's definitely achievable, assuming you have that sort of willpower.

This person would likely still be a low BMI even without exercise.

> What studies are you referring to, that show that "normal" exercise will not cause weight loss? I'd be very curious to see them.

For a compilation of study data about weight loss, see the first half of Health at Every Size [1] (this is not an endorsement of a HAES lifestyle, but this book does collect the evidence).

[1] www.amazon.com/Health-At-Every-Size-Surprising/dp/1935618253/

Re: Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

#104

Post by king_jester »

thret wrote: post #15
DINKDINK wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Normal exercise will not cause weight loss What do you define "normal exercise" as? You cannot break the 2nd law of thermodynamics: if you calories in is less than your calories burned you must lose weight.

Daily hard exercise - the panting, heart-pounding, drenched in sweat kind of exercise - increases your metabolism. You can eat whatever you want, as much as you want, and you won't gain fat. The 2nd law of thermodynamics has little if anything to do with calorie counting.

> Daily hard exercise - the panting, heart-pounding, drenched in sweat kind of exercise - increases your metabolism.

This is not true for all people and can be highly variable between different people, let alone not necessarily possible for folks with metabolic disorders.

Re: Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

#105

Post by Someone1234 »

aqme28 wrote: post #101
Someone1234 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to side with the person above you. Exercise is important for a healthy lifestyle, but it won't result in weight loss. The amount of calories burned are trivial. For example: - 30 minute run burns (150 pound individual) burns just 272 calories. - 30 minute lap swim (150 pound individual) burns, again, just 272 calories. A single Milky Way chocolate bar has 240 calories. A Big Mac has 530 calories. A McDonald…

Exercise has a huge effect on BMR, so I don't think your point really works.

Please update Wikipedia with your insights. They must have no access to the studies you yourself do:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_metabolic_rate#Aerobic_v...

Re: Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

#106

Post by Someone1234 »

bacr wrote: post #100
Someone1234 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to side with the person above you. Exercise is important for a healthy lifestyle, but it won't result in weight loss. The amount of calories burned are trivial. For example: - 30 minute run burns (150 pound individual) burns just 272 calories. - 30 minute lap swim (150 pound individual) burns, again, just 272 calories. A single Milky Way chocolate bar has 240 calories. A Big Mac has 530 calories. A McDonald…

Those are fair points regarding energy expenditure for specific exercises. However, that doesn't take into account the effects of regular exercise on BMR. That normal exercise can elevate your BMR is certainly plausible, and many people have conducted studies that have reached this conclusion. Metabolism is a complicated thing, and there are conflicting answers on the subject. Results differ under a variety of condit…

> That normal exercise can elevate your BMR is certainly plausible, and many people have conducted studies that have reached this conclusion.

It is true that they have conducted these studies, it is inaccurate to claim that it any great impact on BMR, and the study you linked (which you can read in full [0]) supports that conclusion. The 48 hour improvement is inconsequential, and there are no improvements beyond that.

Wikipedia summarises it nicely:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_metabolic_rate#Aerobic_v...

As I said before, exercise is important for a healthy lifestyle (you'll literally live longer), but for weight loss it is much much less important than diet, in particular for people who aren't looking to shed a small amount of weight.

All you're claiming is that for a 30 minute workout you might lose 300 calories instead of 270 calories due to BMR (and that's being generous looking at the study). Which doesn't change the overall point that without diet changes you won't lose significant amount of weight through exercise alone.

[0] PDF: http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPNS%2FPNS...

Re: Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

#107

Post by easuter »

ars wrote: post #2

Normal exercise will not cause weight loss - countless studies have shown that. But it will make you healthier, so it's worth it anyway.

What do you mean by "normal exercise"?

For example, yesterday I burned ~750kcal on the treadmill. Are you trying to tell me this makes no dent in the calories I consumed throughout the day?

If my objective was to lose weight, are you implying that doing such a workout couldn't lead to a calorie deficit and therefore expenditure of stored fat?

Re: Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

#108

Post by king_jester »

Shivetya wrote: post #37
SixSigma wrote: post #8

Number of deaths is a poor metric. Everyone dies. Obesity contributes significantly to the 70 man years spent by patients in dialysis every week in the US.

Obesity is an epidemic we are accelerating. Then to top that, far too many do not understand the difference between obesity and morbid obesity. The latest fads of Fat Acceptance and Healthy At Every Size show the trend quite well. Then to make matters worse, in the US hospitals and doctors can be punished for trying to help obese, especially very obese patients. The ACA brought along patient satisfaction scores. So i…

> The latest fads of Fat Acceptance and Healthy At Every Size show the trend quite well.

Fat acceptance is not a fad as you put. It is about people being able to accept and love themselves as they are. Fat people are bombarded with messages that they are not acceptable and they should not be exist. Fatness is described as a thing to be exterminated, which implies that fat people should be exterminated. This is not hyperbole, you can see this message reflected in advertising, media portrayals, and what people say (your own post has elements of this).

> Finally we have far too many people inactive in this country and many others because government benefits programs are sufficient to allow them this lifestyle. Simply put, if you keep paying and feeding people not to work just what do you expect them to do? Idleness is not a good state, its worse when we institutionalize it.

Have you even ever lived on an assistance program like food stamps? The amount of money given is never enough to completely cover's one's needs, folks are constantly looking for and finding ways to raise money by working, whether its official employment or grey market.

> Anecdotal but I am sure many have the same experience, there are two groups of co workers who are out the most, very obese people and smokers. Why should either be acceptable?

Nobody is obligated to live their life if a way you find acceptable. Nobody is obligated to be healthy or to drop unhealthy habits like smoking. Health systems that seek to punish people will not produce good health outcomes, it will simply drive those people away from seeking out medical care when they need it. Accusatory and attacking beliefs about health are what cause doctors and medical professionals to blame health outcomes on that status even when it is unrelated.

Re: Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

#109

Post by rndn »

kybernetyk wrote: post #84
rndn wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are the recommendations from the Wikipedia page on Paleolithic lifestyle [1]: - Adopt a Paleolithic diet as much as possible: plenty of fruit, fish, vegetables, nuts, and meat while avoiding most forms of food not in existence in paleolithic time. It implies avoiding all processed food, and in particular junk food and food with a high glycemic load, such as sweets and cultivated crops like potatoes and cereal gr…

- Die with 22 years from measles.

What?! I didn't mean to imply that everything on this list is necessarily relevant to modern lifestyle. It also says nothing about vaccination. The parent comment asked for how human lifestyle looked like in prehistoric ages, that's why I posted it. It also mentiones that our ancestors presumably performed a variety of different movements each day (climbing, throwing etc.) which I think is relevant. Maybe I should have removed the word "recommendations" to not step into prejudiced territory.

Re: Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

#110

Post by steven777400 »

Someone1234 wrote: post #94
victorhooi wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not agree with your statement. What do you even mean by "normal exercise"? I believe that most "normal" people are capable of doing enough exercise (combined with good eating choices) that they can lose weight. For example, say you have a 1-hour lunch break each day. During that lunch break, you could easily go for a 6km run (30-40 minutes), as well as have time for a shower, and grab food. If you're prepared to…

I'm going to side with the person above you. Exercise is important for a healthy lifestyle, but it won't result in weight loss. The amount of calories burned are trivial. For example: - 30 minute run burns (150 pound individual) burns just 272 calories. - 30 minute lap swim (150 pound individual) burns, again, just 272 calories. A single Milky Way chocolate bar has 240 calories. A Big Mac has 530 calories. A McDonald…

I'm using MyFitnessPal and for the first time in years I'm losing weight. I've known I need to lose weight, but the number just kept going up instead. I second what you say. Exercise helps, but ultimately restricting calories by eating less and eating more correctly is the only way to "stay in the green".

It is amazing and absurd to me how many calories some things have. I had no idea! For example, ketchup is loaded with calories. Same with cheese. I used to load down all my food with tons of ketchup and snack on cheese slices. Way too "expensive"!

Post reply on HN