Author: Jonathan Ross, TRX Master Trainer, Discovery Health Channel Fitness Expert, www.AionFitness.com
Recently, Time magazine featured a cover article titled “The Myth About Exercise.” Within days everyone I knew was asking me about this article. By the end of this article, you’ll enjoy much-needed clarity on a subject that wasn’t really confusing to most people until flawed journalism made it that way.
If you care to read the original article, here is the link:
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1914857,00.html
Strap yourselves in. This is about how to think about exercise – something you don’t hear enough about but in my opinion is the real secret to long-term success. This is the main problem with the article – a dysfunctional attitude about exercise that leads to misinterpretation of research studies.
We’ll correct the article’s mistakes in four main points:
- The author’s bias is evident and leads to incorrect conclusions from research studies (and additionally, some of the studies were poorly designed)
- The article completely misses the point of exercise – as so many people often do
- The real source of our world-wide obesity problem is ignored in favor of “smearing” exercise
- There is a clear, nearly obvious, outcome from the research that the article unfortunately missed. Or was too scared to print.
First, a subtitle for the Time article could easily be “The Myth of Journalistic Objectivity.” One of the tenets of journalism is its objectivity, yet the author has a bias so powerful that it is impossible for it not to affect his conclusions. The article is riddled with references to how much he hates exercise. You’ll find him mentioning “working like a farm animal” with a personal trainer, throwing in terms like “abuse,” “hateful,” “grueling,” “wretched,” just to add some color and flair. At least we can compliment him for a complete lack of subtlety with his bias. Okay, Mr. Cloud, we get it! You don’t like exercise. With a weak premise, the best way to build support for your position is to play to emotions.
Were the bias in this article limited only to providing colorful language, it would be less bothersome. But, it unfortunately affects his conclusions from the various research studies he quotes throughout. Shockingly, in the article we learn that there are studies – real, scientific studies – that prove that exercise increases appetite!
Um, was this point unclear to anyone or inconclusive enough to warrant research?
At one point, he mentions that “I get hungry after exercise, so I often eat more on the days I workout than on the days I don’t.” Exactly! And your car uses more gas on days you drive than on days you don’t.
Precisely what “ah-ha” moment are we supposed to have in response to this obvious information?
(As an aside, I believe none of us are free from some degree of bias – myself included – and that true objectivity is a myth. We are all a mixture of our experiences, values, and beliefs and efforts to completely excise them from our lives results in a lessening of our ability to reason. The best we can hope for is to try and minimize bias, do our homework, and grow.)
The study which seems to be the fuel for his premise of the article is so flawed that it is of questionable usefulness (I did manage to find a more useful, closer-to-the-data conclusion – you’ll find it a bit later on.)
A large group of overweight women were broken into four groups – three of whom exercised for varying lengths with a personal trainer, and one of whom was asked to maintain their normal activity patterns. The kicker? They were not asked to change their dietary habits! All the groups lost weight, but no one group lost a significantly larger amount of weight than any other. And the conclusion was that exercise did not lead to a statistically significant change in weight loss. The only thing clear is that just because research is done doesn’t mean it gives us useful conclusions.
And to close the first point: I find it interesting that Mr. Cloud solicited not one comment from his own (or some other) personal trainer or other fitness professional. I suppose it was easier to call researchers in labs all over the country than get up and go find some people working in the trenches.
(In Round 2 post, I’ll address point 2 above)