Obesity study finds cardio + weight training best for teens.

[steve_d]

Canadian study I did the analysis for. Published today and therefore hit media pretty big this morning.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/obesity...eens-1.2018885

http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/weights-and...tudy-1.2019014

The first is the news clip on canada am, the second was kinda cool since it interviewed my colleagues + a participant in the study who then went on to lose over 100 pounds after being inspired by her results.

I should mention that although the results might seem obvious, this type of research is hard to come by for any definitive answers. Media will focus on certain aspects, but the study collected much more information and will likely see many more interesting conclusions from the research. I get a kick out of certain comments like 'yeah, why spend over a million to find this out - may as well just use that money to buy exercise equipment for schools'.

This study will cost fractions of a million for each conclusion made from it, and from there, we might finally get the government into funding education / physical education where it needs to be. It's easy to just ignore the obvious until this type of research comes about.

[Praetorian]

I am waiting for the study about how lack of exercise and over eating leads to weight gain. ;o)

P

[Want2lift]

Hard to believe some of the common sense things people have to study to figure out. They should be teaching our children more about health, nutrition and the benefits of physical activity in school then some of the crap material they have to learn.

[steve_d]

I am waiting for the study about how lack of exercise and over eating leads to weight gain. ;o)

P

Yeah, funny part is that probably needs to happen before the government will do anything about education! The study was designed in such a way to compare aerobic vs resistance, and combination vs. either alone. As you know, there is quite a lot to it, and by seeing how recommendations pan out in the real world, you don't really see what 'truth' exists. For example, with aerobic exercise - many people simply eat more to accommodate. Their diets were not controlled in the sense that they were forced to eat x. So in the real world, it would be important to know if for example resistance is better than aerobic or perhaps if aerobic was not significantly better than doing nothing! (which for many people, is the case because of the inability to limit calorie intake). But of course, weight loss, bodyfat, waist circumference are only a few of the outcomes. Perhaps bodyfat does not decline with aerobic vs not, but visceral fat does, etc. Or perhaps resistance exercise seems to be awesome, regardless if its in combination with aerobic or not. In the end, these outcomes and the ones not yet looked at will lead to some interesting results / and new things to study.

Hard to believe some of the common sense things people have to study to figure out. They should be teaching our children more about health, nutrition and the benefits of physical activity in school then some of the crap material they have to learn.

Exactly. Nutrition has been taught in school, and PE has been part of program, but we all remember what we were taught - food guide pyramid, etc. Once people are finally willing to accept some of this as nonsense, eventually who knows - they may start getting it right. It hasn't even been long since media focused on anti-sugar vs. anti-fat. Just think of how sexy the word 'low fat' used to be, and now it's low sugar (or gluten, etc). Even pepsi have started with lower sugar to appeal to that market. I would rather see kids working out in a gym then being told they should need to wait until they are 18 or whatever. Studies like this will help people realize it. The study was even talked about on the Today show so there has been some immediate impact. Of course, outside the media, the actual study results do talk about concepts not really studied, or even known as common sense. One thing to note is there is a big difference between efficacy, and effectiveness.

[Primal]

Awesome stuff Steve! In my Physical activity and Nutrition course we look a lot at the stats of obesity, eating habits and exercise. Somethings do seem obvious to us like cardio and weight training being best for teens but unfortunately research always has to be done on the topic before people actually agree fully with it and it adds to the collective data about health and wellness. It's really cool that you got to do the analysis for this and the media is blowing up with it now! Maybe I'll send the link to my prof!

-Primal

[natenator]

Exactly. Nutrition has been taught in school, and PE has been part of program, but we all remember what we were taught - food guide pyramid, etc. Once people are finally willing to accept some of this as nonsense, eventually who knows - they may start getting it right. It hasn't even been long since media focused on anti-sugar vs. anti-fat. Just think of how sexy the word 'low fat' used to be, and now it's low sugar (or gluten, etc). Even pepsi have started with lower sugar to appeal to that market. I would rather see kids working out in a gym then being told they should need to wait until they are 18 or whatever. Studies like this will help people realize it. The study was even talked about on the Today show so there has been some immediate impact. Of course, outside the media, the actual study results do talk about concepts not really studied, or even known as common sense. One thing to note is there is a big difference between efficacy, and effectiveness.

No education program is going to help kids when 4.7M (14%) in Canada and 16M (22%) in the US live in poverty.
What occurs in childhood echos in adulthood (environment is a huge predictor of behaviour) - there's a reason stop smoking campaigns are aimed at teens
Studies that show poor kids gain more weight (read: fat) compared to those in middle class families - choice of food only matters when you can afford something better
It's a perpetual cycle in that what we learn in childhood we continue into adulthood and then pass onto our own kids

What's truly needed are poverty reduction measures or the cycle will never improve.

Social determinants are stronger influencers of health than any behaviour but receive less attention because they require tackling the actual problem.

and LOL @ that sugar reduction program by pepsi. All they're going to do is reduce the container size. People are dopes lol

[steve_d]

Have you guys seen the movie Fed Up? We watched this yesterday - was very good... This topic reminds me of that...

While I agree that overcoming poverty is quite a hurdle/obstacle, I don't believe that the full 14% and 16% numbers you mention have poverty so severe that they cannot avoid sugar/junk. It reminds me of a post I saw on facebook about a women demanding money from the government because she could not afford to eat healthily or exercise.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/ar...help-diet.html

there was also a picture of her with a cupboard full of junk. I think its extremely difficult to avoid sugar because all our grocery stores and tv adds are filled with sugar filled foods, but if this person had a coach good in finances and nutrition, her cupboard would not need marshmellow fluff, cadbury fingers, poptarts and Heroes - and a variety pack of potato chips. I also see on top some sort of cupcake / monsters univerity thing. Some of these food items are not cheap - and you can easily buy 'healthier' foods at a fraction of the cost per calorie. Besides, rather than spending 5$ on 5000 calories of garbage, they could spend 5$ on 2000 calories of something I would actually call food. She mentions trying swimming but it was too expensive... That's ok, I hear where she is coming from - however some forms of exercise are free.

But anyway, no one should ever have the goal of completely eliminating something... It's impossible. You mentioned the stop smoking campaign in teens - In much the same way as we've cut back on cigarette use in the entire popluation because of the demonizing of smoking (cancer, etc), we can do the same for sugar type foods. We can't control everyone, but we can do something. People still smoke, but the education has helped reduce it tremendously. But if demonizing sugar in the exact way cigarettes were helped just as much as it did for smoking, it needs to be done. We think it's silly now, but I bet in 100 years we'd look back and laugh at how dumb we were as a society today (at least I hope that is what will happen). 'sugar' is harder to battle than cigarettes - because it isn't as simple as banning soft drinks. And obviously the consumers of sugar and makers of sugary foods won't be quick to allow governement that sort of control.

Education isn't going to do much if the school system still supplies kids with the crap they are supplying. To be honest, they'd be better off serving nothing compared to what they are serving them for the most part. I don't have all the answers of course - but there are some obvious changes needed. It's a sad thing that even in the best case scenario, we'd still have poverty to deal with, although the same can be said about poverty from many health aspects outside of obesity. I believe there are improvement that can be made to help that segment of the population, but not all who are obese are poor, and vice versa. We can't eliminate obesity, just like we can't eliminate smoking - but we can control it.

In any case, much of what I said are the main point in the movie, I'd suggest everyone watch it. Best documentary I've seen in a while.

[Primal]

Steve, your comment reminds me about an episode of 'Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition' I watched with my mom a few years back. This was before I was into fitness and bodybuilding but I still liked the show because it seemed to have a good message, the trainer was ripped and looked good and at the end the people would be healthy and happier (usually down a few 100 lbs too). Anyways, on this one particular episode I remember this guy who had a family and when he started to lose weight, his wife started complaining and not supporting him (yelling at him, bringing home junk food anyways e.t.c.). So the guy made the decision to move out and leave his family behind in order to lose weight.

Then after he did this he lost his job or switched careers and was basically penniless as he was losing weight. The trainer was really nice and offered him a place to stay back in Arizona where he lived but the guy declined and for a month or two, lived out of car, did workouts in the parking lot and budgeted his remaining money buying healthy foods and still trying his hardest to keeping with his program. I remember the camera man asking him how he was and the guy replied that he was doing OK and that even though he was low on money he could still afford to eat healthy and do his best to lose weight. Pretty sure at the end of the show, the guy still didn't lose all the weight he had planned on losing but he was still a few hundred pounds down and went through the skin removal surgery fine. Pretty good for what the poor guy had to go through, but I think it goes to show that you can really eat healthy even if you are tight on money. Obviously, this was a special case but you can save up some money from buying 2 oreo boxes and buy a bag of oranges instead I would think...

Just had a test today on what you said basically Natenator and it is true, no denying that! As 'young adult' (whatever society calls 18-20 year olds now these days) it is very apparent that lots of kids and teens food choices are very dependent on what their parents bring home to eat. I've been with the same bunch of peers from elementary school to high school and now even some at university and the kids that started out with the unhealthy choices did not change one bit, in fact it got worse. It's a problem not only for the lower class but for the medium and even the upper class as well. I believe things will really start changing when parents finally start adding good choices and educating their children on healthful choices to eat and bring to school.

What really pisses me off even more than than this is the fact that only now have the media started picking up on exercise. It's so stupid how in schools they make these kids do 'beep tests' and other stupid routines to test how fast certain kids can run and who is more flexible, blah blah blah... Just make exercise fun for god's sake! People wonder why kids don't participate in their school phys. ed classes and it's because their physical activity effing sucks!! Bring back tag and dodgeball and soccer instead of teaching kids about what zone your heart rate should be in when doing these stupid beep tests. I guarantee that kids will be more active inside and outside school when the curriculum will finally change. I don't know, maybe it's just my bad experience, hopefully it's a lot better wherever you guys are...

When I have the time I'll give the movie a shot Steve!

-Primal