As Time's John Cloud writes:

The basic problem is that while it's true that exercise burns calories and that you must burn calories to lose weight, exercise has another effect: it can stimulate hunger. That causes us to eat more, which in turn can negate the weight-loss benefits we just accrued. Exercise, in other words, isn't necessarily helping us lose weight. It may even be making it harder.

Cloud cites a study from the peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE (PLoS is the nonprofit Public Library of Science). The study, supervised by a colleague of Ravussin's, Dr. Timothy Church, chair in health wisdom at LSU, randomly assigned into four groups 464 overweight women who didn't regularly exercise. Women in three of the groups were asked to work out with a personal trainer for six months; women in the fourth group were the control and were told to maintain their usual routines. The results?

On average, the women in all the groups, even the control group, lost weight, but the women who exercised - sweating it out with a trainer several days a week for six months - did not lose significantly more weight than the control subjects did.

Cloud supposes, jokingly (?) "The control-group women may have lost weight because they were filling out those regular health forms, which may have prompted them to consume fewer doughnuts."

Of course, exercise has its benefits: Enhancing heart and circulatory health, helping prevent disease, improving mental health and cognitive ability. Cloud points to a study released by the University of Alberta a few weeks ago which found that people with chronic back pain who exercise four days a week have 36% less disability than those who exercise only two or three days a week.

But weight loss is a different issue. As is self-control. Cloud explains:

Many people assume that weight is mostly a matter of willpower - that we can learn both to exercise and to avoid muffins and Gatorade. A few of us can, but evolution did not build us to do this for very long. In 2000 the journal Psychological Bulletin published a paper by psychologists Mark Muraven and Roy Baumeister in which they observed that self-control is like a muscle: it weakens each day after you use it. If you force yourself to jog for an hour, your self-regulatory capacity is proportionately enfeebled. Rather than lunching on a salad, you'll be more likely to opt for pizza.

This strikes me as somewhat questionable, as I — and most people I know — tend to be quite loathe to "undo" any work put in at the gym with high-calorie snacks. But this working-out-makes-you-eat movement even has conspiracy theorists!

Steven Gortmaker, head of Harvard's Prevention Research Center on Nutrition and Physical Activity says, "If you're more physically active, you're going to get hungry and eat more." He's suspicious of the playgrounds at fast-food restaurants. "Why would they build those? I know it sounds kind of like conspiracy theory, but you have to think, if a kid plays five minutes and burns 50 calories, he might then go inside and consume 500 calories or even 1,000."

In any case, the key seems to be not to be total sloth and a lead a sedentary lifestyle but just to keep on moving. Cloud writes:

Many obesity researchers now believe that very frequent, low-level physical activity - the kind humans did for tens of thousands of years before the leaf blower was invented - may actually work better for us than the occasional bouts of exercise you get as a gym rat. "You cannot sit still all day long and then have 30 minutes of exercise without producing stress on the muscles," says Hans-Rudolf Berthoud, a neurobiologist at LSU's Pennington Biomedical Research Center who has studied nutrition for 20 years. "The muscles will ache, and you may not want to move after. But to burn calories, the muscle movements don't have to be extreme. It would be better to distribute the movements throughout the day."

Of course, since none of this is conducive to working a desk job (blogging for a living included) we're gonna add: Good luck with that.

Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin [Time]

Earlier: Does Exercise Make You Hungry Instead Of Thin?

The story will focus on the 40-ish Bridget's desire to have a baby "before time runs out." Oh, goody. Just what the world needs! A slender Hollywood actress given "permission" to fatten up and pretend to freak out about her biological clock.

It's been eight years since Bridget Jones's Diary hit the screen — and thirteen years since the novel was published — and the neurotic, messy character feels very dated. Even more tired is the my-life-is-not-complete-without-a-child cliché. From Marisa Tomei stomping her heel while ranting about her biological clock in 1992's My Cousin Vinny to Tina Fey's Baby Mama (not to mention Liz Lemon's baby fever).

Plus: Not only do we have to read about Zellweger eating "biscuits and gravy, crispy duck, Snickers, milk shakes, pizza and butter-soaked potatoes" — People calls this her "very special diet" to "get in shape" to play Bridget Jones — but when the filming is finished, we'll inevitably have to hear about Zellweger's amazing weight loss, which will surely involve a personal trainer and grilled chicken and lots of veggies. While regular Americans get fat-shamed, Renée is a yo-yo dieting icon!

When the Bridget Jones novel came out, its appeal was that its heroine was offbeat and charmingly imperfect as she obsessed about love and career — a fresh take. But now that the series has become about weight and babies, how does it differ from all the other crap targeted to women?

Third 'Bridget Jones' In Works [Variety]
Renée Zellweger To Pack It On Again For Bridget Jones [People]

Perhaps Dave was trying to issue a compliment when he announced, "I like it when pregnant women are really big," but we still found his comments a bit creepy. Also: When Maya said she gained 70 pounds with her first pregnancy did he really need to cackle? Sure, it's well over what doctors recommend, but according to the CDC, 21 percent of women who gave birth in 2006 gained more than 40 pounds, so it's not exactly unheard of. (Also: Who cares?) Maya seemed a little off during the interview, but we weren't sure if she was annoyed or just tired. And although we wouldn't know from personal experience, she did mention that people were constantly telling her "whoa you're huge" during her first pregnancy; maybe that sort of unsolicited body commentary is just something pregnant ladies have to deal with? You tell us. Clip at left.

The study by Oxford University researchers and published this week in The Lancet medical journal, is a new analysis of 57 separate studies conducted mostly in North America and Europe, reports The Guardian. Researchers examined the body mass index (BMI) of nearly 900,000 people, most of whom were 46 in 1979 when the study started and had an average BMI of 25. A BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 is considered normal, 25 to 29.9 is overweight, and 30 or more is classified as obese.

Researchers followed the group for 20 years, during which time 100,000 people died. Men and women with a BMI between 22.5 and 25 were least likely to die during the study, but ever additional 5 GMI points reduced their mortality rate by 30 percent. The group with the lowest mortality rate had a BMI of 24. People who had a BMI of 30 to 35, considered moderately obese, died three years earlier than would be expected at a healthy weight. Those who were severely obese, with a BMI of 40 to 50 cut their lifespan by 10 years, about the same as is estimated for smokers.

Though severe obesity only affects about 2% of the population, in the United States 66% of adults are either overweight or obese, according to CNN. "What is particularly worrisome in the United States is that more than a third of people now qualify as obese, and a subset of people are becoming progressively more obese," says Michael Thun, emeritus vice president of epidemiological research at the American Cancer Society, who did not work on the study. Thun said that while obese people should focus on not continuing to gain weight and quitting smoking, since both smoking and severe obesity take an average of 10 years off your life. "There has been an artificial horse race between obesity and smoking over which is worse. This is fundamentally silly," says Thun. Oxford University professor Richard Peto, who worked on the study, stressed that it should not be interpreted to mean that smoking is less dangerous. "These are two things that you do have any choice about," Peto said. "I think smokers are getting the wrong message if they keep on smoking and think what matters is obesity. Smoking matters enormously more."

Obese Die Up To 10 Years Early, Study Of A Million People Finds [The Guardian]
Obesity Can Shorten Lifespan Up To A Decade [CNN]

The study, which was published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, followed 703 women using depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DPMA), oral contraception (desogestrel), or nonhormonal contraception (bilateral tubal ligation, condom or abstinence) for three years. DPMA users who switched to another method were followed for an additional two years. After analyzing the subjects' body weight and body mass, researchers found that DMPA users were more than twice as likely as the other women to become obese. "One concern is DMPA's link to increased abdominal fat, a known component of metabolic syndrome, which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke and diabetes," said lead author Abbey Berenson, M.D. The amount of weight gain on DMPA did slow down over time. Users of the shot who switched to non-hormonal control lost nearly four pounds over the next two years, but those who switched to oral contraception gained an additional four pounds. [EurekAlert]

[Image via Flickr.]

This is the time of year when the commercials for diets, gym memberships, and weight loss pills flood the airwaves, in an attempt at making couch potatoes feel bad enough about themselves to literally buy into their idea of a better life. The invention of DVR makes this a little more bearable, but emails like this one make us beyond angry, because instead of just attacking our own self esteem, they're trying to make us hate the fluctuating weight of others, in order to allow us to see that we should probably hate ourselves as well.

Hi Tracie,
Hope you had a good weekend, and Happy New Year! Please let me know if you’ll be able to post the below—thought it might be of interest. I can also set up an interview with a Zone Delivery USA rep. Thanks!

Zone Delivery USA (www.zonedeliveryusa.com/), a premier meal delivery service provider, has announced this year’s “Biggest Gainers of 2008”. While stars around them were cutting back, these five celebs packed on the pounds:

1. Joaquin Phoenix

2. Mariah Carey

3. Oprah Winfrey

4. Matthew Perry

5. Jennifer Love Hewitt

Joaquin Phoenix “walked the line” from gorgeous Golden Globe winner to Hollywood dropout deadbeat, clinging on to the coattails of his A-list friends. Now that he’s sworn-off acting, he’s sworn-on his refrigerator. Mariah Carey is no longer every man’s “fantasy”. As a married woman, the average weight gain is 6 pounds a year; soon she’ll be crushing Nick Cannon! The Queen of Talk Shows, Oprah Winfrey might be known for her grandiose audience giveaways, but looks like she’s keeping all the food for herself. Has Matthew Perry eaten one of his “Friends”? He’s kicked some bad habits, but may be replacing the butts for burgers. Party of Five? Jennifer Love Hewitt looked like she was eating for more than one when she was caught by the paparazzi over the summer in her teeny weenie bikini.

And there were pictures attached!

Also, 2008 was the year that Mariah Carey slimmed down — on the advice of Vogue's Andre Leon Talley — so we have a feeling that the "fat" picture of her isn't even recent. It would seem this company is heavy on the insults and light on the research.

First the bad news: a recent study found that being just seven pounds overweight increased men's risk of heart failure — by about 11 percent over 20 years. Being obese increased the risk by about 180 percent. The silver lining: exercising just one to three times a month lowered the risk by 18 percent.

More silver lining, sorta: Jane Brody at the Times lists a bunch of diet books that she promises won't require you to starve yourself or adopt stupid gimmicks. Some sound okay: "The Volumetrics Eating Plan: Techniques and Recipes for Feeling Full on Fewer Calories" tells you to eat a bigger volume of foods that aren't calorie-dense, while "The Instinct Diet: Use Your Five Food Instincts to Lose Weight and Keep It Off" teaches that the eating impulses that helped us as cavemen don't work in the modern world. But then there's "The Beck Diet Solution" and "The Beck Diet Weight Loss Workbook," which purport to teach the overweight "to think like a thin person." Which is okay if that thin person is, say, Barack Obama — but not if it's Amy Winehouse.

Shockingly, being smart may not be what keeps thin people so svelte — they may have social advantages. A study of rural Americans revealed that "obese participants tended to have less education and lower annual incomes than normal weight respondents. They also were more likely to view their community as unpleasant for physical activity, such as lacking sidewalks for walking or biking or to have few places to be active." One of the study authors says that "a lot of travel planning focuses on how to increase the numbers of automobiles on our roadways, not on how to make travel friendly by foot or bicycle," and that we should think about preventing obesity when we're planning communities. ""Everyone will benefit," he writes, "if we make the healthy choice the easy choice."

Being just seven pounds overweight can raise the risk of heart failure [Daily Mail]
Weight-Loss Guides Without Gimmicks [NYT]
Eating At Buffets Plus Not Exercising Equals Obesity In Rural America [Science Daily]

In a story which will appear in the January issue of O magazine, Oprah writes: "I look at my thinner self and think, 'How did I let this happen again?" She says she's gained 40 pounds since 2006, when she weighed 160. "I'm embarrassed," she says. "I'm mad at myself." I'm mad at you, too, Oprah. I wish you would shut up.

And a blogger named Elizabeth agrees with me: "Dear Oprah," she writes on Cahiers Du Moment. "DON'T EVER APOLOGIZE FOR YOUR WEIGHT AGAIN. I don't find it honest, I find it alternatingly heart-breaking and infuriating. Demeaning, obfuscating, angering. You don't owe anybody an apology for what your body size is."

Agreed! Oprah is one of the most powerful women on the entire planet. She is a media mogul, with heaps and heaps of money who spreads love, wealth, charity and understanding. People joke about it, but as a book critic, she made little-known authors into success stories; her influence changes lives. She was raped at the age of nine. She had a child at the age of 14, who died. She went from rags to riches. Why do we always have to talk about how much she weighs?

Look, I understand that her health is at risk. And that she has thyroid issues. Of course it is important for her to be healthy. And in her article, Oprah says it's not about getting thin; it's about being fit. "When it comes to maintaining my health I didn't just fall off the wagon. I let the wagon fall on me," she writes. "I didn't follow my own fundamental rule of taking care of self first." But the for a person who is, above all, an extremely successful business figure, why are we talking about her body? Maybe it's because she puts it out there. Or maybe it's because she's a woman? Do we ever talk about Harvey Weinstein's weight? Or how Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter's love of cigarettes could kill him? As a female role model, does Oprah have to be apologetic about not sticking to her workout plan? And why is it that the woman who, let's face it — has everything — has to feel embarrassed about her body? Is it more important than her charity work, her years in broadcasting or her intelligence?

Of course, there's another issue here: Fat-shaming. With those two words, "I'm embarrassed," Oprah makes plus-sized people — and yes, that includes me — feel like they should be embarrassed, too. Because Oprah is amazing, and Oprah knows all. So if Oprah weighs 200 lbs. and is embarrassed then you'd better be ashamed of yourself if you're anywhere near or over that weight, right? It's such a nasty feeling from the woman who gleefully handed out cars. What happened to "Love what you've got," as her T-shirt demands? Something tells me that won't be the message of her emergency fat summit in January.

Oprah Winfrey Says She Weighs 200 Pounds [AP]
Oprah Balloons to 200 Pounds, Convenes Emergency Summit [Gawker]
Dear Oprah [Cahiers Du Moment]
Earlier: Overwhelming & Odd: Shopping Oprah's New Online Store

Can I call you J. Love? I'm going to call you that anyway, which is ironic, because what I feel for you right now is far from love. This morning, I got a nice little press release from Us pimping this week's cover story, "Jennifer Love Hewitt: 18 Lbs In Ten Weeks!" I don't care that you lost weight — what you do with your figure is your business, and I can't imagine that the backlash after Badonkgate was easy on the ol' self-esteem. No, I'm mad at you for promoting your weight loss, especially since when people were criticizing you for having a less than "ideal" figure, you were all, my weight is nobody's business but my own!

Let's hop in the wayback machine, hmm? So last December you got engaged, and whilst vacationing in Hawaii, the paparazzi took unflattering pictures of you that ended up plastered all over the internet and on the cover of People. This is what you said back then: "What I should be doing is celebrating some of the best days of my life and my engagement to the man of my dreams, instead of having to deal with photographers taking invasive pictures from bad angles.... Like all women out there should, I love my body." You continued, "To all girls with butts, boobs, hips and a waist, put on a bikini—put it on and stay strong."

How do you think those same girls, with butts, boobs, et. al, are feeling now that you posed for the Us cover boasting your weight loss secrets? Of course, you played the "health" card, saying, "The energy level and the way I feel now is great." Not only is your hypocrisy deeply lame, I think it's a bad career move, and here's why.

You're not getting any younger, J. Love, and 20-year-old hotties with perfect bodies are a dime-a-dozen in Hollywood. You should know: you built your career on being one. There was a huge upswelling of female support after those cruel internet comments about the Hawaii photos. For every asshole blogger who called you fat, there was someone else who liked you much more for your honesty and body positivity. And what's more: these people, not your haters, are much more likely to be the kind of people who watch your schmaltzy show, The Ghost Whisperer. By touting your weight loss proudly on the pages of Us, you're risking alienating these people who stood up for you.

To reiterate: the size of your ass is not my business. It's not anyone's business! But it seems like you're happy to flaunt it for the masses, as long as it's an "acceptable" size.

Xoxo!

Jennifer Love Hewitt Reveals New Thinner Body [Us]
Jennifer Love Hewitt Fires Back [People]

Earlier: Breaking News! Jennifer Love Hewitt Is A Human Being.

A second study from the University of Minnesota suggests that girls who eat dinner with their families are less likely to develop eating disorders. A press release about the study says, "Among teen girls, those who ate five or more meals with their families each week in 1999 were significantly less likely to report using extreme measures (such as self-induced vomiting and diuretics) to control their weight in 2004, regardless of their sociodemographic characteristics, body mass index or family connectedness."

It goes to show that immediate social factors — your friends and family — are just as important in the developing body image as cultural factors like vaunted size-0 celebrities. So tell the teen in your life that you love them, and then go eat dinner.

Study: Girls' Self-Image May Affect Future Weight [AP via CNN]
Disordered Eating Less Common Among Teen Girls Who Regularly Eat Family Meals [EurekAlert]

Anyway, on the one hand, isn't it kind of wonderful that finding a partner means settling into a comfort zone where 30 pounds means nothing? On the other hand, what's with all the single people keeping their weight down, just until they meet someone they can get chubby with? And if you're already carrying a little extra weight, would you rather stay single than get married knowing you're just going to get heavier?

Gain A Spouse And You'll Likely Gain Some Pounds, Too [USA Today]

• Catherine Zeta Jones is not alone! More than one in ten pregnant women smoke, reports the AP (via MSNBC), and research suggests that many of those women suffer from depression, making quitting even more difficult. A Columbia University epidemiologist, tracked more than 1,500 pregnant women, and "22 percent smoked at some point during pregnancy" with about 12 percent classified as nicotine-dependent. [MSNBC]
  
• A bunch of spunky girl soccer stars urinated on the opposing team's synthetic soccer field. "I think it's unclassy," sniffed a rival. We think it smells like chicken soup! [Boston Herald]
  
• A 5-foot tall woman was cleared of charges that she raped a 6-foot tall man, after he accused her of spiking his drink with roofies. We know she's innocent and all, but that giraffe print sweater is criminal. [Daily Mail]
  
• Cuesta Benberry, a quilt historian an archivist who helped bring attention to the contributions of African-American woman to the craft, has died at the age of 83. No word yet if Anthropologie sends their regrets. [NY Times]

• Two women and a man are charged with smuggling over 20 women and girls from Togo in West Africa and forcing them to work at hair-braiding salons in New Jersey. Oh shit, we had cornrows five years ago. [International Herald Tribune]
• A controversial British Muslim playwright has turned the story of her mother's brutal honor killing into a play, which she hopes to also adapt into a feature film. In other news, we saw Grease this weekend and it was OMG Awesome! [Daily Mail]
• Hilarious Molly Ivins, who died in January and was totally one of our heroes, is being honored in an NYC Memorial Service tomorrow. We're sure Shrub will be there in spirit. [NY Times]
• A Harvard Medical student is fighting for the right to have additional time to pump her breast milk during the nine hour test she must take to get her degree. Are the examiners worried she's got a cheat sheet on the other side of her nursing bra or something? [NY Times]
• Post menopausal women who drink two or more alcoholic beverages a day may double their chances of getting endometrial cancer. [Science Daily]

Now researchers at UC Berkeley are announcing what most of us women-folk have known all along. According to CNN.com:

"Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley said women who sniffed a chemical found in male sweat experienced elevated levels of an important hormone, along with higher sexual arousal, faster heart rate and other effects."

Unfortunately, the study also reports that the scent of sweat elevates levels of cortisol, and elevated cortisol, if late-night infomercials are to be believed, causes weight gain.

"The researchers measured levels of the hormone cortisol in the saliva of 48 female undergraduates at Berkeley, average age of about 21, after the women took 20 sniffs from a jar of androstadienone. Cortisol is secreted by the body to help maintain proper arousal and sense of well-being, respond to stress and other functions. Cortisol levels in the women who smelled androstadienone shot up within roughly 15 minutes and stayed elevated for up to an hour."

Lest you think you can just keep your nose away from his upper body and avoid turning into a fat-ass, the report goes onto say that androstdienone, a derivative of testosterone

"...is found in male sweat as well as in saliva and semen. It smells somewhat musky."

Guess making out and blow jobs are out of the question too. As they say, a minute on the lips, forever on the hips.

[CNN]