ABSTRACT
Physical activity is officially being touted as a ‘kind of medicine’ (Gard and Wright 2005: 57) for the ‘disease’ known as obesity and the epidemic of ‘excess’ weight. However, as already explained, science provides a soft basis for this rationalized, medicalized prescription. For example, there are serious questions concerning whether populations are in fact more sedentary than in the past. Indeed, as well as doubts about whether people are consuming more calories (UK Parliament 2004) there is empirical uncertainty concerning whether the so-called ‘obesity crisis’ is actually caused by physical inactivity (Gard 2003, Keith et al. 2006). Also, systematic reviews of weight-loss research show that exercise, similar to dieting, is ineffective for losing weight and keeping it off for most people who try (Miller 1999). And, burgeoning critical weight studies, in accord with exercise physiology and the Health at Every Size paradigm, maintain that moderate physical activity may improve metabolic fitness independent of weight-control (Campos 2004, Campos et al. 2006b). Chapter 1 stated that there is evidence that cardiorespiratory fitness is more important than fatness or body mass for metabolic health, morbidity and mortality risk (Blair and Brodney 1999, Lee et al. 1999). More broadly, these benefits are not distributed equally through populations. Socio-economic status is far more significant for health and illness than ‘lifestyle choices’ that are indebted to social structure (Marmot 2004, Scambler 2002). And there are more experiential dimensions of health which might be ‘ephemeral’ but are ‘perhaps more crucial’ for people than ‘biological markers’ and ‘relative risk’ (Edgley and Brissett 1990: 271).
