Saw this on my news-feed tonight.
If I ever take myself out, it’s going to be in a jogging suit in one of these asshole’s offices.
Exercise is good for many reasons, and from what I’ve gleaned, we honestly know very little about why it’s good. If you want a good textbook on the science, I recommend Exercise Physiology by McArdle. Exercise is not, however, a panacea. It sure as shit is not proven to be able to prevent depression, which is itself an enigmatic condition of the human psyche. But that doesn’t stop people from saying inflammatory shit like “Exercise Prevents Depression, FACT”. But hell, maybe there’s been a new discovery. Science does that, occasionally. Let’s see:
“Published today in the American Journal of Psychiatry, the results show even small amounts of exercise can protect against depression, with mental health benefits seen regardless of age or gender.”
Oh, all right. Well let’s just take look. Hm. Not seeing it. Uh, so, we’ll just take your word for it. By the way, these articles are often repackaged press-releases, not independent articles from, you know, like, a writer with a science background. Well, hell, what does the press release say?
Basically, this Australian clinic that focuses on depression trawled through data from a Norwegian health survey from the 80’s-90’s (Health Study of Nord-Trøndelag County). It’s a shitload of cheap data, basically, and you can cram it in a stats program and you will inevitably find some weak associations in numbers because statistics.
In the survey, there were SELF reports of exercise habits (literally nobody ever misreports their exercise habits) and of scores on another self-reported depression screening survey.
From these data, the organization concludes somehow that “12% of cases of depression could have been prevented if participants undertook just one hour of physical activity each week.”
Here’s why this “study” was done: 1 it was cheap to do. 2. It’s gets publicity (which people hope turns into funding). People can bitch and moan all they want about science being underfunded, but there’s a point where this system of sensationalism is morally unjustifiable, and this is absolutely one of them.
This “study” is basically completely worthless. People who are severely depressed have a shitload of confounding factors that cuts into exercise time. A single mother working two jobs who had to drop out of college who has no friends doesn’t have time to hit the gym. Someone marginally unhappy who feels up to biking can probably get his mood up a point or two on a self-reported survey. Treating these two people as the same is idiocy.
No information about human psychology was gleaned from this data-crunching (not really an actual study). This was 100% for the headline. They had the article in mind before hand. They didn’t give a shit what they found because you will inevitably find something. It’s all fucking publicity. And it’s at the expense of people who are suffering.
Depression fucking sucks. It’s a complex issue. Even if exercise is helpful in combating depression, telling somebody to “just exercise more” is basically as completely fucking stupid and unhelpful as telling them to “just cheer up” or “just try to be happier”. This is tacitly telling depressed people “it’s your fault you’re unhappy; science says so”. It’s not that fucking simple, and selling that absolute insipid pablum as science pisses me the fuck off.