If you are anything like me, and you too often find yourself questioning your life decisions after ingesting a box of donuts, then please read. Is exercise the most effective way to stay at a healthy weight?
Consider this: it would take a 6-foot, 160-pound man nearly an hour and a half of vigorous biking to burn off the calories from two Krispy Kreme Apple Fritters. This reality is underappreciated and too often ignored — 1.5 minutes to eat, 1.5 hours to burn the calories.
More and more research tells us that if you are interested in losing weight, the true key is what you eat. Vox reported that a recent National Health Institute study found that “If a hypothetical 200-pound man added 60 minutes of medium intensity running four days per week while keeping his calorie intake the same, and he did this for 30 days, he’d lose five pounds.” Would. Only. Lose. Five. Pounds.
Maybe it’s just me — I expect to lose five pounds after running just one day a week. And let us not forget the addictive nature of some foods, which is quite real — some studies have found that sugar is more addictive than some drugs. This speaks volumes on why it is so hard to stop yourself from unhealthy eating.
So then, why do we think exercise is more important for losing weight?
Think about this for a second — excess sugar is easily one of the unhealthiest substances we put into our bodies. Companies like Coca-Cola claim to be concerned with our health, yet they continue to use their own private research to support their products. This biased, unethical research often confirms their agenda by finding that sugar is not harmful. Oftentimes, they are able to successfully shift the blame to other food groups like fat or perpetuate the claim that exercise will offset any unhealthy effects of their products.
If companies like Coca-Cola still want to make hundreds of billions of dollars off ruining our health and at the same time promote pseudo-“active healthy living,” then they have to start taking the brunt of blame for our obesity crisis.
These industries are trying to cover their asses and only care about protecting their profits. They are not concerned about our health — they only, and will always only, care about their bottom lines.
In my view, we should mount an informational campaign (similar to anti-tobacco advertisements) on the harms of soda and salt, and shine bright spotlights on the shadiness of the food industry.
