[DanBC]

Here's a well run meta analysis.

http://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depre...

> Exercise is moderately more effective than no therapy for reducing symptoms of depression.

[...]

> The reviewers also note that when only high-quality studies were included, the difference between exercise and no therapy is less conclusive.

[...]

> The evidence about whether exercise for depression improves quality of life is inconclusive.

Since depression is a potentially fatal illness it's important to stick to evidence based treatments.

[hellofunk]

No one is suggesting that exercise replace any other treatment. Is that the impression you were getting? But because it has in fact helped at least some people, it seems limiting for any person to disqualify that for themselves without a try.

[Fnoord]

I'm a proponent of light daily exercise (my government recommends 21 min a day light exercise and twice a week heavy exercise [1]), but this argument doesn't hold water. There are also people who claim to benefit from homeopathy (a pseudoscience). Is their anecdotal evidence worth as much as ours?

[1] To be precise: 150 min a week of medium movement (walking, cycling), twice a week heavy movement (running, soccer aka football), and avoid sitting still [2]. Also, the difference between 0 and 15 min of exercise is larger than 15 and 30 min. That's why it feels so good to start with exercises and only do it very little.

[2] https://www.gezondheidsraad.nl/nl/taak-werkwijze/werkterrein...

[hellofunk]

That's a strange comparison. Nearly every doctor in existence recommends exercise for a wide variety of reasons. How many recommend homeopathy? It's more than a little surprising to me to see several people in this thread who are explicitly skeptical about the value and potential effects of exercise.

I just think it would be unfair for someone to read these comments and then think, "ah, see, there is no reason I should try regularly exercising," and give up before they have started. Do you think that is a good outcome? Even you said you are a proponent of exercise.

[Fnoord]

We agree on much more than we disagree on.

We all sometimes share anecdotes. I shared one as well in this thread.

I don't discount the advice of doctors, or the advice from the government which is a summary of the advice of many medical experts.

What I say is that anecdotal evidence isn't evidence, and when someone calls us on that, we should accept that specific counter-argument and move on.

If we're going to enforce people to accept our anecdotal evidence what is going to stop people from accepting other's anecdotal evidence on, say, homeopathy indeed?

Also, the amount of professionals who recommend something isn't definitive proof either. Not every professional is equal. What matters is the amount of studies which haven't been debunked.

> I just think it would be unfair for someone to read these comments and then think, "ah, see, there is no reason I should try regularly exercising," and give up before they have started. Do you think that is a good outcome? Even you said you are a proponent of exercise.

I don't know about the USA or anywhere else in the world but the health recommendation I quoted was merely a minor revision and widely in the local news. I read about it in the newspaper, saw it on TV in the news, saw it covered on a popular talkshow, and I'm sure it was shared on social media as well. People who, at this point, do not want to exercise and claim it is completely useless are just ignorant or in denial IMNSHO. Its the same with people who remain smoker for whatever excuse or reason, or who keep drinking alcohol.

However as I wrote in numerous posts throughout this thread, diet has the largest effect on health. I'm repeating myself, but its: less calories, less sugar, less salt, less saturated fat (transfats are a thing of the past).

I also very much liked the quote of someone saying that whoever says there's more to dieting than calories is trying to sell you something. It makes losing weight unnecessarily difficult and complex.