Russell Wilder, a top obesity expert, informed the American College of Physicians that his patients shed more weight on bed rest than on an exercise regime.
We all consider exercise to be the main method for weight loss . In adddition, we all consider that being a couch potato is the main reason for weight gain and obesity. Hence, we have the obesity epidemic in the West.
We also have disturbing predictions that 90 per cent of children today are going to overweight or obese adults by 2050, signifying a £50 billion bill for the UK taxpayer.
No wonder the government has launched the “To the playing fields” campaign to combat obesity in children.
To question that exercise is not good for weight loss seems nonsensical.
However, that is exactly what the majority of cutting-edge obesity researchers are doing. They emphasise that benefits of exercise for weight loss have been exaggerated.
Professor Boyd Swinburn, director of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention, stated that: “should we put the emphasis on exercise we are unlikely to tackle the obesity problem as we are not driving at the root cause.”
The concept of exercise helping to shed weight dates from the 1980s, when obesity started to boom.
A recent research review by the renowned Mayo Clinic in the USA has concluded that “most studies have demonstrated no or modest weight loss with exercise alone . . . patients should have realistic expectations, an exercise regimen . . . is unlikely to result in short-term weight loss beyond what is achieved with dietary change.”
So the emphasis would appear to more on diet than on “move more, lose more”.
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