“Hey, did you know that food makes you fat?”
“No way!”
“It’s true, I read it in a newspaper.”
“Oh my God. I’m giving up food.”
“Me too. I mean, we’ll probably die, but at least we won’t be fat right?”
It’s irresponsible and wrong, when we’re constantly being told that the nation is in the middle of an obesity epidemic to run the headline ‘Does running make you fat?’.
Here’s the answer: no. No, it doesn’t. Food can make you fat if you eat too much of the wrong type, but running isn’t going to make you fat.
The basis for the article in the Independent seems to be the fact that its writer Sophie Morris trained for a marathon and didn’t lose weight. Shocker! Could that be because, as she describes, her response to getting up at 6am to run was to eat two breakfasts or the fact that she stopped taking the stairs because she was running and that was a good excuse. Running isn’t to blame for you failing to lose weight, Sophie, you are.
The article also makes the mistake of assuming that the only reason people run is to lose weight: not to improve their mood, improve their fitness, to challenge themselves or for the sheer enjoyment of it. It goes on to cite a study of 464 overweight women which found that ‘those who exercised did not lose significantly more weight than the inactive participants.’ No mention of whether it improved their fitness and general health.
Running is the most accessible sport going. You don’t need a lot of kit, you can do it anywhere and you can do it whenever you want, on your own or with other people. To suggest, through misleading headlines, that it is bad for you is irresponsible in that it’s putting off people who if they hadn’t seen a copy of the Independent today, might have started exercising.
Let’s be clear on two things: if you want to lose weight running WILL help you, but you need to adjust your diet too. But there’s also a huge misconception in this country that being overweight automatically means you’re unfit or unhealthy. I’ve watched a fair few marathon runners who are faster than me that will prove otherwise.
People will use a lot of excuses other that looking at themselves for why things don’t happen or why they get injured etc. For every negative thing written about running it is important to counter balance that negativity with positivity. That is why your website is so good. Keep spreading a positive message. Everyone told me I shouldn’t run when I decided to, my story here
http://www.laclinicaamano.com/2011/10/mental-health-and-running-great-south.html
hopefully shows that running is really good for me and in theory everyone if you just do it correctly.
Good response to a very bad article
Simon
It’s the classic mistake of people not altering calorie intake when they start out exercising! And infact she probably put muscle weight on too. Awful article, fabulous critique 🙂
Ugh articles like that drive me nuts. You’re right about it being irresponsible to put a headline like that. Also irresponsible of them to cite a study without giving more information – were all 464 women on the same diet, and was it a reduced calorie diet, or did they just eat whatever they want?
People who don’t want to run or do any other form of exercise will find any excuse not to (been there and done that myself!!). Simple fact is that if you are burning up more calories than are going in, weight will come off. So agree totally with what you say – if you decide to eat two breakfasts just because you’ve been for a run, weight isn’t going to come off!! That’s one of the reasons I love my micoach app – it tells me how many calories a run has burnt so I get a swift reminder that a 3 mile run doesn’t mean I can devour a packet of hob nobs (sadly!!)
Any chance the same paper can print your response to balance the original article?
RARRRRRRR – this sort of thing really annoys me! I took up running to lose weight, I haven’t lost much because I have not changed my diet, but I KNOW it’s my fault and not caused by the running. This is irresponsible reporting – I hope someone from the paper comes across your blog.
That comment was from Fortnightflo BTW – I cant log into wordpress to comment on your blog 🙂