The man quoted in this story says that exercising is useless as a way of losing weight. Instead, he claims, one should eat less (i.e., ingest fewer calories). Why must it be one or the other? Exercising is a great way to lose weight (or, put differently, to keep one's weight down). I ride my bike 136.8 miles per week at a pretty high rate of speed. That burns about 7,600 calories, which equals 2.16 pounds.
Another way to look at it is as follows: If I kept my caloric intake the same and stopped riding altogether, I'd gain 2.16 pounds per week! What the man should have said is that if you're going to exercise, exercise. Don't think that walking around the block a couple of times a week, or sitting on a stationary bike for 30 minutes twice a week, or playing softball once a week, or going bowling or dancing once a week, is going to counteract pizza, ice cream, cake, pie, beer, doughnuts, chocolate, soft drinks, hamburgers, hot dogs, and potato chips.
Body weight is a function of three things: (1) calories ingested; (2) calories expended; and (3) metabolism. (The older you get, the slower your metabolism.) People are fatter than ever because (1) they lack the self-control to say no to calorie-rich foods and (2) exercising is hard. One reason people lack self-control is that we are bombarded with images of delicious, cheap, calorie-rich foods. Don't believe me? Watch television for just one hour, on any channel. It takes more willpower to keep the weight off in 2016 than it did in, say, 1916, or even 1966. If willpower is constant (human nature is what it is) and temptation is ever increasing, then succumbing to temptation will increase. And there you go: an explanation of the obesity epidemic.
