Time to sever the link
between inactivity crisis and obesity epidemic?
Hello
there! If you enjoy the content on Obesity Panacea, consider subscribing for
future posts via email or RSS feed. Also, don't forget to like us on Facebook!
Two weeks
ago our colleague Dr Arya Sharma published a very interesting post discussing the latest reports on
the extremely low levels of physical activity in the Canadian population
(sometimes referred to as the “inactivity crisis”). The gist of the
reports are that exceedingly few Canadians (7% of kids and 15% of adults) are meeting physical activity
guidelines. But Dr Sharma’s argument is that although most age groups
showed a relationship between BMI and physical activity level (e.g. lean boys
tended to be more active than obese boys), the real take-home message is that
physical activity levels are low in all groups, not just among those who
are overweight and obese. From Dr Sharma (it’s a great post, so please do
visit his site to read the whole piece):
…if we
convert the rather modest differences in MVPA levels taking into account the
increased effort required to move higher body weights, we would find almost no
difference in actual calories spent in activities to account for any difference
in body weights.Thus, to me at least, these data pretty much blow to pieces the
widely held bias that overweight and obesity can be largely explained by lack
of activity or that overweight and obese individuals are less physically active
(read “lazy”) than “normal” weight individuals.
…
In light
of these data and the tremendous negative emotional and physical impact of
weight bias, I stongly believe that discussing inactivity (or exercise) in the
context of obesity is not only obfuscating the issues but also a major
distraction from addressing the real causes of the problem.
This
should in no way imply that the shockingly low activity levels of ALL Canadians
(young and old, male and female, slender and obese) should not be cause for
alarm given the innumerable health benefits of physical activity and the
increasingly recognised health risks associated with sedentariness. In
addition, these comments should also in no way imply that increasing physical
activity and sensible exercise “prescriptions” are not important prevention or
treatment strategies for weight management.
It is,
however, hightime to reframe the discussion of inactivity and sedentariness as
a discussion about fitness and health risk in general rather than as a
discussion on obesity.
Continuing
to link the necessary discussion about inactivity to the problem of obesity is
not only scientifically unfounded but, by dangerously and unfairly reinforcing
stereotypes (not reflected in the actual data), may well do more harm than good
when it comes to tackling both the epidemic of obesity and the epidemic of
sedentariness.
Now this
is not to say that reduced physical activity levels don’t play a role in the
obesity epidemic, nor that they are not an important player in weight
maintenance. Again, from Dr Sharma (this time in the comments section):
…absolutely,
it is well possible that the overall reduction in physical activity may play
some role in the right shift in the bell curve of weight distributions, and
getting everyone moving more may eventually lead to a left shift of this
distribution (although I am not holding my breath on this one).My issues are
not with whether or not activity is important for health or to reduce the risk
of obesity.
My issues
are solely with the misrepresentation of these findings as reinforcing the
stereotype that overweight and obese people are less physically active, when in
fact they may well be expending more effort (and calories) than their “normal”
weight counterparts.
All of
this brings us back to our recent discussion of
problematic obesity-related public service announcements. Because, as you might
expect, it’s commonplace for public health messages to make an implicit or
explicit link between the inactivity crisis and obesity epidemic. It’s hard not
to – obesity is negatively associated with physical activity, and if
you’re trying to make a case for why people should be more active, it’s a
pretty easy way to get their attention.
Even
ParticipACTION, Canada’s standard-bearer for physical activity, has gone down
this route on occasion. For example, their video titled “There is a
crisis in Canada” (unfortunately I can’t embed it, but it’s the 4th video down
on this page) starts with various shots of
headless obese individuals, while the voice-over states “There is a crisis
in Canada. A crisis of epic proportions. Canadians are simply not
moving enough. Nearly half of the adults in this country are
overweight or obese.” Now those statements are undoubtedly true, but
putting them together like that seems to imply that obese individuals are obese
simply because they don’t move enough, and that moving more would solve the
problem.
No comments:
Post a Comment