Posts Tagged ‘physical activity’

What is the difference between exercise and physical activity? Does it really matter? A recent review in Current Nutrition Reports suggests that this is a distinction that makes a difference. Oxford tells us that exercise is “activity requiring physical effort, carried out to sustain or improve health and fitness.” But physical activity is “any form […]

The pandemic has wrought a stark change in how Americans get around – 36% less walking and 37% more cycling. Meanwhile, pedestrian deaths hit a 40-year high last year. Active transportation in the U.S. has both risks and rewards. A Universal Decline The drop in walking trips was uniform across the country. Emily Adler, the […]

“Morning workouts turbocharge the benefits of exercise,” says Psychology Today. A litany of headlines like this have been crossing our screen for weeks now. They are insistent. “The early bird gets the worm – and sees better workout results,” said People magazine. “This is the best time of day to work out if you want […]

Obesity care is suffering from a blinding distraction – BMI and weight loss. It’s not hard to find critiques of this. The American Medical Association recently cautioned physicians against the misuse of BMI as a surrogate for health and obesity. PLOS One has a new paper telling us BMI may not necessarily increase mortality independently […]

“Exercise with a buddy, your brain will thank you,” says the Washington Post. “Improve Your Memory, Problem-Solving, and Mental Processing Speeds in Just 6 Minutes,” promises Inc. This is just a small sample of the exuberant claims about exercise and brain health coming at us from news media. There’s only one problem. Some of it […]

The headlines make us dizzy. “For a longer life, afternoon exercise may be best,” says the Washington Post. “Morning Workouts May Lower Your Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke,” according to Verywell Health. However, BBC offers yet another view with a headline saying, “Best exercise time may differ for men and women.” Despite the wild variations […]

NAFLD – the accumulation of fat in the liver without excessive alcohol use – is one of the key reasons that obesity is a real and chronic disease. It is one of the common complications of obesity, and it is rising in parallel with obesity – most disturbingly in children. Of course, losing weight is […]

What exactly is a healthy lifestyle? If you dig into a certain corner of public health research, you are likely to come up with healthy patterns of eating, physical activity, sleep, and stress management as the answer. But Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, author of Fit Nation, has a different answer for you. Fitness culture defines a […]

More 50 years ago, John Cleese ran the Ministry of Silly Walks for a skit on Monty Python’s Flying Circus. He interviewed a grant applicant who had a silly walk and told Cleese that “with government backing I could make it very silly.” Now this little exercise has made it from the Ministry of Silly […]

Do angels dancing on the head of a pin get good exercise? We’ll have to get back to you on that one. But we can say that thinking about the value of exercise for overcoming obesity is worthwhile. In the International Journal of Obesity over the last few weeks an excellent conversation about this has […]