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Saturday, January 10, 2004Last summer, Sandy Szwarc wrote a big fat series (10 pieces and over 25,000 words) "Weighing Obesity" that appeared in Tech Central Station from July 14-August 8. It was sheer propaganda for the fat acceptance movement - filled with quotes from representatives of that movement, fabricated numbers such as multiplying anorexia deaths by a factor of 1000, and making such incredible assertions as "The strongest scientific evidence indicates we'll live longest and with the fewest health problems if we're in the overweight range, especially as we get older." Also, "In addition to longer life spans, fat people have lower rates of most cancers, respiratory diseases, and osteoporosis," she insisted. All of this was readily falsifiable, and I refuted it in On Weighing Obesity. Why is it therefore not surprising that she has now gone on the offensive against exercise as well, claiming you could walk the circumference of the planet without losing a dress size or pant size? Do you think I'm exaggerating? Here's what she wrote, allegedly citing a study: It sort of flies in the face of that simplistic myth - "burn 3,500 kcalories and lose a pound" -- doesn't it? "At about 80 kcal/mile [a "kcal" is what is normally referred to as a calorie] for a 77 kg person walking at a reasonable speed (3 to 4 mph), this works out to roughly 3,920 miles per pound, equivalent to walking from New York City to Seattle, and then down to San Diego-for one pound of fat!" My advice: Leave your pedometer at home, it probably can't count that many steps. And thank goodness they didn't. Numerous readers wrote in to slam Szwarc and her fuzzy (fatty?) math. As one noted, "If you burn 80 per mile, it will take 43.75 miles to burn one pound of fat at a rate of 3,500 kcal per pound, not 3,920 miles. By Szwarc's logic, you could walk around the earth with about 7 pounds of body fat." Truth means absolutely nothing to this woman. Fact is, for those who have lost weight and kept it off (something the fat acceptance people will tell you is impossible) exercise is not only important but practically essential. The ongoing 3,000-member National Weight Control Registry shows that over 90 percent of persons who lost substantial weight found they must exercise to keep it off. For all the arguments over high-carb and low-carb diets (in which I have certainly participated), it may well be that regular exercise, both aerobic and resistance, is the most important factor in maintaining weight loss. There's no doubt that regular exercise is essential to keep weight off, especially for the metabolically challenged. However, I have to agree with Sandy Szwarc when she says: Sadly, most people view themselves and others as failures if they don't lose weight with exercise, thinking if they just tried harder they wouldn't still be fat. A lot of people don't get the message that they have to restrict their calories and exercise to lose weight. And too often, those who are overweight are looked down upon as lazy. But losing weight isn't as simple as quitting smoking or quitting drugs. Everyone's body burns off calories at rest at different rates. Some of us have to eat much less and work much harder than others to maintain an ideal body weight. We should recognize that and be a little more tolerant of the overweight. REBUTTAL: Sandy Szwarc responds, although she mistakes me for Michael Fumento, or vice versa: I found it startling that a medical professional would purposely misrepresent my TCS article on exercise or that you believe if exercise is not about losing weight then it has no value. That is certainly not what I wrote. It is regrettable that you would misquote the article (re: fuzzy math) without going on-line to verify the quote, and that you would intentionally misconstrue the information to deter people who could have actually been helped by this information. As medical professionals, I feel our primary concern should be the health of people and our healthcare advice should be dispensed in a way that does no harm and is not colored by our personal prejudices. Sadly, many healthcare professionals are unable to care for patients without couching everything in terms of weight loss. For the best interests of the health of patients, it's important to separate exercise from weight loss and help people recognize the health benefits of exercise itself so that they make it a positive life-long habit, not just part of a diet. Exercise alone (at healthful levels as recommended by every reputable medical organization and professional) does not result in appreciable weight loss and most people and studies recognize this. Helping everyone understand the health benefits of positive lifestyle habits like exercise and making it accessible to everyone, as this two-part series is discussing, should be our goal. And as you must know, the primary factors which lead to health and longevity are most determined by lifestyle factors -- regular physical activity and a nourishing diet. Whether or not that results in weight loss is irrelevant to the health of most people. Instead, when medical professionals only look at weight, they often encourage extreme weight loss measures, diets and extreme exercise that lead to proven health problems and rarely long-term weight loss. Granted such bad advice makes overweight patients valuable profit centers to the medical industry, but that's hardly best for the long-term health of our patients. The evidence is overwhelming and sound that everyone is benefited by regular physical activity and, as unpopular as the idea may be, those benefits are independent of weight. We should be encouraging regular physical activity for everyone -- the "metabolically challenged" as you call them and thin people not dieting who aren't exempt from its importance either. It's an important health message. I hope after reading part two you will print a retraction on Medpundit. Thank you for taking the time to consider my concerns. Consider them considered. posted by Sydney on 1/10/2004 11:26:00 AM 2 comments 2 Comments:Thank you for responding to Sandy Szwarc. I've read a number of posts on her blog, and had a difficult time making sense of some of them, although I felt she was trying to provide some kind of service to readers. I just always had a nagging feeling that something seemed off, especially when she used math or statistics. And there is (at least that I can find) no place for comments on her blog, so anyone who disagrees with her has to say so elsewhere. And now I realize that she just stinks at math! Anyway, I'm glad to see someone call her out for some of her misguided "science".
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Quotation can be slander when you gerrymander. There is nothing wrong with Sandy Szwarc's math. Here is the full quotation from her article, the math is entirely correct when taken in context:
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