Ben Goldacre at Nerdstock. Ben Goldacre at Nerdstock. Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden… Bad Science » Think yourself thin… Ben Goldacre The Guardian, Saturday August 23 2008 What I particularly enjoy is the spectacle of fat people – ideally drinking beer – watching television, while somewhere on the other side of the world citizens of all nations are getting some nice exercise in the Olympics (throwing javelins, jumping over metal bars, climbing lamp posts with banners, and running away from the water cannon).
These are the people I imagine paying for gyms they never visit, while I am cheerfully cycling to work and carrying the shopping up the stairs. But can obsessing over sport actually improve your health? Slightly, possibly, if you’ve got something to work with. Alia Crum and Ellen Langer from Harvard psychology department took 84 female hotel attendants in 7 hotels. They were cleaning an average of 15 rooms a day, each requiring half an hour of walking, bending, pushing, lifting, and carrying. But it gets better. The other group was left alone. Four weeks later the researchers measured everything again. Radio 4 - Placebo.