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New research shows that the simple act of exercise and not fitness itself can convince you that you look better. (Credit: iStockphoto)
ScienceDaily (Oct. 9, 2009) — Attention weekend warriors: the simple act of exercise and not fitness itself can convince you that you look better, a new University of Florida study finds.
People who don't achieve workout milestones such as losing fat, gaining strength or boosting cardiovascular fitness feel just as good about their bodies as their more athletic counterparts, said Heather Hausenblas, a UF exercise psychologist. Her study is published in the September issue of the Journal of Health Psychology.
"You would think that if you become more fit that you would experience greater improvements in terms of body image, but that's not what we found," she said. "It may be that the requirements to receive the psychological benefits of exercise, including those relating to body image, differ substantially from the physical benefits."
The study by Hausenblas and graduate student Anna Campbell is the first to systematically analyze the wide-ranging effects of exercise on body image by examining all intervention studies on the subject until June 2008. From the 57 publications, the researchers found conclusively that exercise buffed up the way people see their bodies regardless of the actual benefits, but the results varied.
Negative body image has grown to almost epidemic proportions in the past 20 years, with as many as 60 percent of adults in national studies saying they don't like the way their bodies look, Hausenblas said.
Americans spend billions of dollars a year for products designed to change their body size and shape, including diet pills and various cosmetic procedures, she said.
"Body dissatisfaction is a huge problem in our society and is related to all sorts of negative behavior including yo-yo dieting, smoking, taking steroids and undergoing cosmetic surgery," she said. "It affects men and women and all ages, starting with kids who are as young as five years old saying they don't like how their bodies look."
The psychological advantages of exercise have been less explored, including the reduction of depression or confidence in body image, compared with the well-researched and understood physical benefits, she said.
The study found no difference in body image improvement between people who met the American College of Sports Medicine guidelines by exercising at least 30 minutes a day five days a week and those who did not, Hausenblas said. The guidelines are considered the minimum amount of exercise needed to receive the health related benefits of physical activity, she said.
"We would have thought that people exercising this amount would have felt better about their bodies than those who did not work out as much," she said.
In other results, the study showed slightly larger benefits from exercise in terms of improving body image for women than men, Hausenblas said.
"We believed the gap would be much bigger, but what could be coming into play is the rise of body image issues among men," she said. "We're seeing more media portrayals of the ideal physique for men rather than the overriding emphasis on women we did in the past."
Age presented another difference, with older people most likely to report enhanced body images from exercise, Hausenblas said. The gap may be explained by the older generation having more concerns about their body image than young people, who tend to exercise more, she said.
While the frequency of exercise mattered for boosting body perceptions, there were no differences for the duration, intensity, length or type of exercise, the study found.
"People who say they have high body dissatisfaction tend to exercise the least, so we wanted to take it a step further and see whether exercise causes people's body image to improve," she said.
Kathleen Martin Ginis, a kinesiology professor at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, and exercise expert, praised the research. "This is an important study because it shows that doing virtually any type of exercise, on a regular basis, can help people feel better about their bodies," she said. "With such a large segment of the population dissatisfied with their physiques, it's encouraging to know that even short, frequent bouts of lower intensity exercise can improve body image."
ScienceDaily (Oct. 12, 2009) — Half of all Swedish elite volleyball players suffer at least one injury per season. One important reason may be that most players perform injury-preventing strength training unsupervised. This is shown in a new thesis from the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
All Swedish elite-level teams were invited to participate in the study, and 158 players returned the questionnaire that had been mailed out near the end of the volleyball season. The responses show that about half of the players had been injured at least once during the season. Almost everybody performed some kind of injury-prevention activity, but a majority did it without supervision. "This is surprising since it is well-known that the training is much more effective if a coach or a physiotherapist develops an individualized program and is present during the training sessions," says physiotherapist Sofia Augustsson, the author of the study.
The thesis also shows that supervised strength training makes the athletes perform much better than when exercising alone. Two groups of female volleyball players were given different exercise program. One group received personalized programs that were performed under the supervision of a physiotherapist, while the members of the other group were given a standard program that was performed unsupervised. The former group improved their performance 50 percent more that the latter group. In addition, the proportion of injured players was smaller in the supervised group.
"I have a feeling that more athletes really stick to the program and focus on the task if there is a coach present. Many players may feel that the strength and conditioning training is the boring part of their sport, which makes it tempting to "cheat" when nobody is watching," says Augustsson.
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Healthy fat is needed for our bodies to be well and it doesn’t make you fat! The “fat makes you fat” theory is appealing because it’s simple. Eat less fat and you’ll become less fat (also known as the “less in, less on” theory). The low-fat diet is seductive… and yet, research shows it’s not exactly true.
When you try to eliminate fat intake, the body will try valiantly to find fats, either by binging, or by increasing the volume of food eaten in an effort to get what little fat is in the meal. Some people wake up at night, unknowingly in search of fats. People have been misled by the food pyramid, which offers a misguided carte blanche to all carbs, and vilifies all fats, healthy and unhealthy. When you consider how many people have been following the “experts’” instruction to cut fat and increase carbohydrate intake, while becoming fatter and enduring the misery of cravings as a result, you realize what a colossal mistake this has been.
The assumption, that you will consume fewer calories when carbohydrates are substituted for fat is incorrect. Fat tends to reduce cravings while carbohydrate tends to stimulate cravings by generating hormonal hunger. In fact, although fat contains more than twice the calories per gram of carbohydrate, fat keeps away hunger for about three times as long. Diets high in carbohydrates serve to spike the dieter's insulin level, resulting in the food being stored as fat on the body rather than burned as fuel.
• The obesity rates for Americans have doubled in the last 20 years, coinciding with the advent of the low-fat revolution.
• In the 1960s, Americans ate 45% of their calories from fat – and only 13% of us were obese. Now, while most of us get only about 33% of our calories from fat, 34% of us qualify as obese!
Misconceptions of low fat dieters:
• Fats make you fat
• Whatever I do to lose weight, I can lose it even faster if I reduce the fat
• All fats are bad
• Pretzels are good
• The right amount of fat in your food is the smallest amount you can tolerate
• Full flavored foods are not an option if I want to control my weight
• Low-fat ice cream is good. Full-fat ice cream is bad
Benefits of fat:
The human body uses fatty acids to do everything from building cell membranes to performing key functions in the brain, eyes, and lungs. The functions of fats include:
• Brain – Fats compose 60% of the brain and are essential to brain function, including learning abilities, memory retention and moods. Fats are especially important for pregnant women, since they are integral to fetal brain development.
• Cells – Fatty acids help your cells stay moveable and flexible, as well as being responsible for building cell membranes.
• Heart – 60% of our heart’s energy comes from burning fats. Specific fats are also used to help keep the heart beating in a regular rhythm.
• Nerves – Fats compose the material that insulates and protects the nerves, isolating electrical impulses and speeding their transmission.
• Lungs – Lung surfactant, which requires a high concentration of saturated fats, enables the lungs to work and keeps them from collapsing.
Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Epidemiologic and clinical trials have shown that omega-3 fatty acids reduce CVD incidence (American Heart Association), by:
• decreasing risk of arrhythmias, which can lead to sudden cardiac death
• decreasing triglyceride levels
• decreasing growth rate of atherosclerotic plaque
• lowering blood pressure (slightly)
• Liver cancer: omega-3 fatty acids may be an effective therapy for both the treatment and prevention of human liver cancers. (University of Pittsburg study)
• Depression: Omega-3 fatty acid DHA reduces symptoms of depression probably because it increases gray matter in the brain. (University of Pittsburg study)
• Dementia - Eating fatty fish, high in omega 3, lowers the likelihood of developing “silent” brain lesions that can cause memory loss and dementia (University of Kuopio in Finland)
More benefits of fat:
• healthy skin
• vitamin-absorption
• omega-3s, are anti-inflammatory by nature
The key is to choose higher-fat foods carefully and keep an eye on portion sizes. Remember, any diet should allow enough wiggle room for a "fattening" treat now and again. * that would be your cheat meal/day *
Foods with a higher fat content truly are more satisfying that their low-fat counterparts. When you're physically hungry, and you eat only low-fat foods, that gnawing hunger never really goes away.
When you eat just enough fat, the sense of satisfaction will obliterate that ever-present hunger pang. As with all-things, moderation is truly the key.
Healthy fats:
coldwater fatty fish such as salmon, sardines and herring
nuts, including natural nut butters
seeds
Olive oil
Olives
Avocado
Flax Oil
REFERENCES:
Dietary Fat - The Benefits of Dietary Fat
Does Fat Make You Fat?
How to Eat for Joint Health | eHow.com
How to Choose Good Fats and Avoid the Bad
Healthy and Fat? 5 High-Fat Foods You Should Not Avoid | The Diet Channel
