Exercise isn't the answer to obesity News just in from the Department of the Obvious: turns out that exercise may not be a cure-all for obesity. Instead, researchers at the Loyola University Health system claim that it's your diet that plays the key role in losing weight and avoiding obesity. Wow. Stop the presses! This was yet another case of "breakthrough" research conclusions based on a shoddy study premise and science that was both sloppy and lazy. In the case of this study, researchers compared African American women from Chicago with women from rural Nigeria. The average weight of the American women was 184 pounds, compared to 127 for the Nigerians. But it turned out both groups burned about the same amount of calories each day. The researchers concluded that, "Decreased physical activity may not be the primary driver of the obesity epidemic." Who ever said that decreased physical activity was the "primary driver" of the obesity epidemic? Of course a sedentary lifestyle is a factor in obesity, but a "primary driver?" But if that was the case, they were really headed off in the wrong direction when they headed over to Nigeria. Because it seems that they based this ENTIRE study on the idiotic notion that that Nigerian women are more active than their American counterparts. Why would the researchers have made this assumption? Surely this was based solely on typical American naivety about life in the Third World. "Hey, it's Nigeria - these women must be hunting and gathering all day just to survive." Nonsense. They should've confirmed this premise first. Instead, they admitted they were "surprised" to discover that this assumption turned out not to be true. Maybe it's just me, but if I were conducting research and found that my control group wasn't really working as a control group … well, I'd know that my entire study had just gone ka-blooey. Not Loyola. They bravely forged ahead and had the unmitigated gall to issue study results and conclusions anyway. They concluded that the American women were heavier due to the type of amount and type of diet that those women consumed. Uh… no kidding. Study co-author Richard Cooper, chairman of Loyola University's Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology said, "We would love to say that physical activity has a positive effect on weight control, but that does not appear to be the case." I could've told the researchers that would be the case … and saved them the airfare to Nigeria. There's no magic formula; if you eat healthier foods and less of them, you'll lose weight. Most women would rather die than have someone say that they have a fat butt. However, new research shows that a plump bottom could be a good thing - in fact, it could actually defend against Type II diabetes. This study found that when fat from the hip and buttock was injected into lap mice, the mice were more able to easily use their body's insulin. Fat cells actually shrank and the mice lost weight. One of the leaders of the Harvard Medical School study, "The surprising thing was that it wasn't where the fat was located, it was the kind of fat that was the most important variable." I wouldn't bet on women's attitudes about fat butts changing anytime soon, though. This study doesn't mean that when your wife asks you if an outfit makes her butt look big, it's OK to say "yes." No amount of research will keep that from being a serious health hazard. | 
