Taking “Exercise Is Medicine” to a New Height of Absurdity

The claim is both straightforward and absurd. “An additional hour’s walk could add 376.3 min of life expectancy.” This is a near perfect reduction of “Exercise Is Medicine” to absurdity.

Yes exercise is an excellent tonic and the benefits of physical activity for health are well documented. As a metaphor, exercise is medicine is not bad – even though some may say laughter is the best medicine. And then we also have to remember food is medicine, too. And what about sleep? Yes, sleep is medicine. Shockingly, the water is medicine banner has not gone viral in the campaign to thwart sweet beverages. “Sugar is poison” took hold first.

Correlation, Causation, and Imprecision

There is something about a rallying cry that encourages people to be bold. But claiming that one hour of walking daily can give a relatively inactive person 376.3 minutes of additional life is beyond bold. It is a false claim. While it might be that these authors in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found such an association, they do not even bother to caution the reader. This correlation is not evidence for causality. They make only a passing reference to “residual confounding.”

Beyond that, what is the meaning of three tenths of a minute of life expectancy? Is this level of precision, especially in a study of correlation, something to take seriously?

Not really. The absurdity of a claim about 376.3 extra minutes of life expectancy from an hour of walking daily serves only to mock the concept of exercise is medicine.

Click here to spend more than three tenths of a minute reading this new analysis and here for a more careful review of the health benefits attributable to exercise.

Leopold Zborowski with a Walking Stick, painting by Amedeo Modigliani / WikiArt

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November 23, 2024