Link between inactivity and obesity queried

Duh. As Fitness Watch readers know, "exercise" is a terribly inefficient way to control weight and burns off very few Calories. (see here, here, here and here)

Researchers have challenged the assumption that a lack of exercise causes children to put on weight.

A study of children in Plymouth suggests the effect is the other way around - that getting fatter makes them inactive.

The paper, published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, concludes that programmes to tackle obesity may need to focus more on food than exercise.

However, some other experts have questioned the findings.

The paper says there is no disputing the association between physical activity and body fat. And there is no suggestion that exercise is not good for children. But it does question its value as a way of tackling obesity.

The researchers at the EarlyBird Diabetes Study, based at the Peninsula Medical School in Plymouth, has been following a group of more than 200 city school children for the past 11 years.

As part of the long-term study, they monitored body fat and exercise at regular intervals over three years.

They found no indication that doing more physical activity had any effect on weight, but they did find that children who put on weight did relatively less exercise.

Caloric intake control is and will always be the best way to control weight naturally.

Period.

Professor Wilkin says the policy implications are far-reaching, indicating that nutrition, rather than ever-increasing doses of physical activity, is the key to tackling childhood obesity.

Yes.