The recent August 9th 2009 cover story from Time Magazine, "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin" (Cloud, 2009) may be one of the most poorly researched and misrepresented articles about exercise and fitness. Not only did the author John Cloud misinterpret much of the exercise and health science literature--he has plenty of other articles where his seemingly lack of science and health knowledge is moot--and wrote an article that could potentially damage the public if they follow his misinformed advice, but Time Magazine has been completely irresponsible in publishing this article without seemingly proper fact checking. Cloud begins the article by touting his bitterness towards exercise and finds studies which seem to rationalize his disregard for proper exercise and nutrition. Cloud seems to lack comprehension in science, health, and fitness to accurately convey truthful information. The inaccurate and misleading conclusions he draws may make the metabolic syndrome (obesity, diabetes, heart disease, etc...) epidemic even worse if people believe his story. Although at times he does state exercise has its importance, it is buried in the middle and at the end of the story amongst misleading information about how exercise is bad.
Cloud seems biased from the start as he conveys his disdain for exercise. His lack of comprehension about caloric expenditure and nutrition is shown when he falsely thinks that an extra half mile of running a week will be enough to counter act his food indulgences. By his own description, he has a poor, unimagined exercise routine and ill-defined goals. Also, he didn’t seek a nutritionist’s advice on how to eat properly. If his trainer is not addressing these issues, he should have sought out a new, more qualified trainer long ago.
Beyond Cloud’s personal bias, he misinterprets and misquotes much of the primary research in order to support his far-fetched ideas. Even though Cloud was correct to assert that participation in physical activity has increased from 1980 to 2000 (Steffen, 2006), he seems to try to imply that this has caused an increase in obesity because during the same time, obesity has also increased. A common mistake among non-scientists, Cloud seems to imply correlation means causation. Increase in exercise does not cause an increase in obesity. In the same study that Cloud tried to imply a link to the cause of obesity to a rise in exercise, it is stated that “[o]verall, BMI was 1-2 kg.m-2 lower among individuals who participated regularly in physical activity (Steffen, 2006).” This means that physical activity is actually correlated with lower body mass index (BMI), a way to measure obesity.
Cloud then takes the reader through a rollercoaster of support for and against exercise. While he accurately describes the health benefits for people of all ages, he begins his major argument that “… the past few years of obesity research show that the role of exercise in weight loss has been wildly overstated.” Cloud quotes Eric Ravussin, chair in diabetes and metabolism at Louisiana State University, as saying that exercise is “pretty useless” for weight loss. Cloud even gives the reader his own anecdotal evidence: “it’s entirely possible that those of us who regularly go the gym would weigh even more if we exercise less. But like many other people, I get hungry after I exercise, so I often eat more on the days I work out than on the days I don’t.” He states that exercise stimulates hunger and causes over-consumption. The exact opposite is true and has been found repeatedly in literature. Short term affects of resistance training and aerobic training on hunger have been studied in obese and non-obese male and female subjects. It has been found that exercise does not increase hunger or consumption and actually suppresses hunger right after a bout of exercise (Blundell & King, 1998) (Kissileff, Pi-Sunyer, Segal, Meltzer, & Foelsch, 1990) (Westerp-Plantenga, Verwegan, Ijedema, Wijckmans, & Saris, 1997) (King, Lluch, Stubbs, & Blundell, 1997) (Pomerleau, Imbeault, Parker, & Doucet, 2004) (Broom, Batterham, King, & Stensel, 2009).
PART 2: The compensation problem
PART 3: Self control is like a muscle
PART 4: Closing the energy gap
© Copyright 2009 Christopher D. Nogiec
Comments
Thank you Chris for writing this! This article has been a pain in my butt and I am sick of hearing about it. It is nice to be able to present my clients with a well cited rebuttal.
Thank you!
Christa Doran
Fitness Coach in CT
Thanks so much for writing this. My mother sent me (the only physically fit person in the whole family) the Time article, and reading it made me furious. I'll be emailing your article to her. I hope your work gets a good amount of exposure and does well to combat the effects of Time's article.
As measured by the g'ment, exercise could lead to obesity. The g'ment uses BMI, which is basically how much you weight divided by you height. The probelm with using this index is that it DOES NOT account for people who exercise. When a person goes from weighing 200lbs of mostly fat, to 200lbs of mostly muscle, BMI does not take this into account. The person could still be the same height and not have a change in BMI, although they would feel and look better at 200lbs of muscle rather than fat. The biggest issue in the fat vs fit debate is that measures like BMI are all to often thrown in the mix. if a person exercises and eats a proper, balanced diet including fruits and veggies, they should be healthy. 200lbs of muscle is not the same as 200lbs of FAT and that may have been the author's point.
Even if you go to the NIH web page, it clearly does not account for the differences between fat and muscle weight. Bottom line is that BMI IS close to useless when measuring health, which obesity is a part of. The writer of this article needs to get a better understanding of the obvious failing of a calculation like BMI. Lastly, which one weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of bricks? If you understand this questions and how it related to BMI, then you get the point!
Thanks Christa and Geoff. I really appreciate it.
Sam from BAM makes a good point. Some studies will look at body composition, rather than fat, and others will use a poor index (for active and muscular) people, like BMI> However, Sam from BAM, you are incorrect about BMI's being the author's point. John Cloud clearly states that he believes exercise can lead to obesity.
I read this article last night and kept thinking this is an extremely dangerous and far fetched article. But I didn't have the resources to back that feeling up. Thank you.
Thank you very much for your well-written rebuttal! I hope many people read this.
Here is another item in the article I found ridiculous; Cloud states he could undo his 1 hour jog with that 130 cal gatorade. What kind of workout only burns 130 calories in an hour?!?
Anyway, I am a weightloss success story myself, and I owe it to both eating right AND exercise!
Keep up the great work!
Its just not true...what I leave a comment with an alternative point of view and you delete it? If your rebuttal is so strong lets open up tye debate uinstead of cherry picking.
All the guy said was that what you eat makes way, way more impact than exercise when it comes ot weight loss. he was right. Skip the pizza is way easier than running 10 miles trying to burn it off.
As for the correlation does not prove causation, he did not say exercising Caused wieght gain...you are misrepresenting that. he asked the question if people are exerising more why aren't they thinner instead of more obese?. By your tyheory exercise should correlate with weigth gain as it causes wieght gain..so why doesn't it?
Uh, dude, Cloud specifically states, "This explains why exercise could make you heavier...". Clearly stating causation right there in print.
Hey Steve,
Thanks again for the comment. I didn't delete your comment. I enjoy the healthy debate. Your comment is INTACT on part 4 of my article, where you posted it. You'll see there, where I directly quoted that he is trying to prove the causation.
In fact, if one reads my first article, entitled "The Health Trifecta" The best way of losing weight is a COMBINATION of exercise AND diet. Diet alone is not as effective as the combination, and more effective at changing the body composition (losing fat, maintaining muscle). Cloud argues with misleading data and misrepresentation of the literature taht exercise is bad, and one should just diet.
Nogiec, you are the one who is lying here. In the article you are talking about, Mr. Cloud does not display "his disregard for proper exercise and nutrition". He doesn't say as much as one critical word about proper nutrition.
I'd like to thank everyone for both the positive and contradictory comments.
@Lawless,
I did my best to accurately represent Cloud. Proper nutrition for losing fat/weight excludes desserts and greasy burritos. This is a quote about himself from his article, "cut most of those desserts, my weight has returned to the same 163 lb. it has been most of my adult life. I still have gut fat that hangs over my belt when I sit." and "ordering a satisfyingly greasy burrito."
I read his article in detail. I ask that others do, as well, and not just project their beliefs and infer he's saying something different. His argument is dangerous and misleading. He doesn't say a combination of exercise and nutrition is best. He says exercise is bad.
Why is this John Clown still writing for Time? His latest vitamin "expose" is an absolute piece of biased, incorrect rubbish. He writes as if he is an FDA agent or a big pharma stooge.. Posted September 2011
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