All sorts of things have been blamed for what we in the States like to call the “obesity epidemic”. Fast food restaurants have incredibly clever marketing campaigns. High-fructose corn syrup gets in our system and messes everything all up (seriously check it out; that stuff is in everything). Now, according to John Cloud’s article “Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin” in Time’s August 9th issue, we can add exercise to the list of the things that are making us fat. I understand that weight loss can be a complicated issue, and for a lot of people it is a legitimate struggle. But listen, John Cloud, just because you still have a little cushion doesn’t mean that you can decide that exercise is to blame. Embrace the endorphins and chill out.
The argument is that because exercise makes us hungry, it makes us fat. This theory clashes with study after study showing that the best method for consistently keeping weight off is a combination of exercise and diet. It also neglects that weight loss, though a benefit for some, is not the point of exercising. Cloud’s ideas are based on two things: his personal frustration and single study that was conducted in Louisiana, consistently one of the nation’s fattest states. That’s like doing a study on beer consumption and choosing Frat Row on a series of Saturdays as the hub. Bad idea.
The Louisiana study compared groups of women who consistently exercised with a group who did not, with both groups supposedly maintaining their normal eating habits.The exercisers lost no more weight than non-exercisers, but the reasons why have nothing to do with exercise and everything to do with people’s whacked-out thinking processes. Yes, working out can make you a little hungrier, but whether you eat an apple or drink a calorie-bomb of a smoothie when you finish your workout is completely up to you. Running a few miles doesn’t mean that you can suddenly eat as much as you want and still maintain your weight. Cloud’s article is nothing revolutionary. He gets at what we already know: if you eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight. The piece also has a few factual errors. For example, Cloud tries to convince readers that you can indeed turn fat into muscle through exercise. You can’t. Bring me a tub of lard, exercise it, and turn it into bacon, and I’ll eat it.
Even if Mr. Cloud were onto something, there is no point in discouraging people from exercising when it facilitates so many great things that have nothing to do with weight. Practically everything good for you comes from exercise, including brain cells, which are excellent to have.
This brings me to our student body, often invigorated with the impulse to work out right before fraternity formals or Spring Break, times when brain cells stand little chance. If people decide that they are going to exercise for a week so that they can drink copiously that weekend, they are not only defeating the purpose of exercise, but they are also totally misunderstanding its mechanisms. To those out there who quantify your workouts by how many shots you’re burning: that’s enough. Go enjoy your party, and invite John Cloud, because he needs to relax.
—Katie Des Prez is a junior in the College of Arts and Science. She can be reached at katherine.e.des.prez@vanderbilt.edu.
