It's a fundamental instinct to avoid unnecessary physical activity, so it's no surprise that a lot of people dislike or avoid exercise, says Daniel Lieberman
In his new book, Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding, the Harvard professor of human evolutionary biology explains how we evolved to be physically active, but we never evolved to do physical activity that's not rewarding.
More compassion should be shown to people who are simply following their instincts by not setting out for a 10km run before they have their daily breakfast, he told Jim Mora.
Photo: 123rf
Lieberman is a pioneering researcher on the evolution of human physical activity, we evolved to be active, but we never evolved to exercise, he says.
“Exercise is very modern behaviour, like learning algebra, or going to school, or reading for that matter. These are all modern behaviours. And we think they're normal, but actually, they're not because physical activity is moving.
“But exercise is physical activity is discretionary for the sake of health and fitness. And until recently people were physically active but they didn't exercise.”
Our hunter gatherer ancestors would have looked at us with bewilderment as we hit the gym, he says. Running on a treadmill is especially odd, he says.
“You pay a lot of money for it, and you work really, really hard. And you get absolutely nowhere, right?
That's a really strange thing to do. And the modern treadmill was actually invented in Victorian prisons, as a way of torturing prisoners.”
It is fine, indeed logical, to want to avoid exercise, he says.
“I think we need more compassion about the topic of exercise, because again, we love to be physically active, but we didn't evolve to do unnecessary physical activity.
“That's not rewarding. And yet we make people feel lazy, or tell them that they're lazy, if they don’t go out in the morning and run five miles or go to the gym, whatever it is that it is that you're trying to get them to do.”
People are merely obeying ancient instincts, he says.
“It's a really fundamental instinct to avoid unnecessary physical activity and, and we're not helping people by making them feel bad about their fundamental instincts.
“What we really need to do is help them find ways to make it rewarding and necessary without shaming and blaming them.”
Nevertheless being active is embedded in our genetics, he says,
There's a number of studies which show physical activity, which is sometimes called NEAT or non-exercise activity thermogenesis not my favourite term, I like to call it NEPA, non-exercise physical activity.
“But that's a lot of calories every day, that's a lot of physical activity, just the normal daily tasks of life is actually can be hundreds and hundreds of calories. And they're healthy, right? There's what we evolved to do.”
Photo: Harvard University
Modern life tends to render us motionless, however, he says.
“We sit motionless for hour upon hour in our cars and on our couches we are missing out on important stimuli that for which we evolved to do and that absence makes us more likely to get a wide range of diseases, from hypertension, to diabetes, cancers - the list is long and rather scary.”
For example, if you want to run longer try running faster, he says.
“Running faster actually turns up the stress on the system that elicits a response that has huge benefits,
“But again, you don’t want to do it too much too fast, or you can run into trouble or make yourself uncomfortable or a sick - we've all experienced that.”
While dismissive of many faddish activities, he is a fan of intermittent fasting which he says turns on some of the same mechanisms that are turned on by physical activity.
“When we go through intermittent fasting we're essentially extending the period of negative energy balance and surprise, surprise, when you look at what genes are activated, what enzymes are activated, what proteins are activated … it's actually a subset of what's turned on by exercise, and so I think that's why it lends itself to similar benefits.
“But again, you can get the same benefits from exercising as you can get from intermittent fasting. I'd rather have breakfast and go for a run than skip breakfast - but that's me.”
