Simply moving more isn’t enough to lose weight. You probably already knew that, but to dispel any doubts, American researchers have demonstrated it again.
“More Movement, Less Eating”
The standard advice for weight loss is “more movement and less eating.” However, this doesn’t mean that both are equally responsible for your weight. Nutrition plays a much larger role than exercise because activity accounts for a relatively small portion of our energy expenditure. Simply exercising more will therefore be insufficient for most people to lose weight.
This is once again evident from recent research conducted in the United States [1]. In the “Loyola study,” the weight and activity levels of men and women of African descent from five different countries were compared. It was found, for example, that Afro-Americans had much higher weights than people from Ghana. More importantly, however, was the relationship between physical activity and weight.
Since it has been shown that people tend to overestimate their physical activity, it was recorded for two years using fitness trackers. People who were more active were not found to weigh less. On the contrary, it was the people who met (American) guidelines for the required amount of physical activity who weighed more than those who were less active.
The researchers do not suggest that physical activity is not important with regard to weight, but rather that its importance is overestimated. They believe that more attention should be paid to factors influencing the amount of food you eat.
References
Lara R. Dugas, Stephanie Kliethermes, Jacob Plange-Rhule, Liping Tong, Pascal Bovet, Terrence E. Forrester, Estelle V. Lambert, Dale A. Schoeller, Ramon A. Durazo-Arvizu, David A. Shoham, Guichan Cao, Soren Brage, Ulf Ekelund, Richard S. Cooper, Amy Luke. Accelerometer-measured physical activity is not associated with two-year weight change in African-origin adults from five diverse populations. PeerJ, 2017; 5: e2902
