Health myths #4

There is a lot of research on health and we are getting smarter and smarter in this area. And we are bombarded with this knowledge in our everyday lives. You can hardly avoid stumbling across something related to health on social media, in the news, in magazines and in conversations with friends and acquaintances. It can be difficult to sort through all the information we receive and hard to distinguish between true and false. To debunk or confirm some of these health myths, we have sought inspiration in the book "100 myths about exercise and weight loss" by Bente Klarlund Pedersen and Morten Zacho.

Women's muscles are weaker than men's muscles?

In general, men are stronger than women. But is this because women's muscles are weaker than men's? No, it doesn't. Men's and women's muscles are similar in isolation. The reason why men are stronger than women is that even fit women have a higher percentage of fat and a smaller proportion of muscle than men. However, muscle mass is distributed differently between the two sexes. Men have a higher proportion of muscle in the upper body than women do, so men will be stronger in the upper body in particular.

All calories are the same?

To be in energy balance, we need to consume as many calories as our body burns. So the question is, does it matter if the calorie comes from a wine gum, a piece of meat or a vegetable? To make it simple to understand for most people, weight loss and weight maintenance etc. are often explained in terms of energy intake and how much energy the body burns. However, if you delve deeper into the subject, it quickly becomes a bit more complicated. The fact is that we don't absorb all nutrients in the same way. Some of them, such as dietary fiber that we get from whole grain products, for example, pass through the system relatively undigested. Simple carbohydrates are easily absorbed by the body. Protein is usually fully digested, but it takes about 30% of the energy we take in from the protein to digest it. This means that a calorie in a food is not just a calorie. Because depending on whether the calorie comes from protein, carbohydrate, fat or alcohol, the body absorbs it differently. In addition, different foods affect our sense of satiety in different ways.

Heavy bones cause obesity?

We can't blame our bones for a slightly too high number on the scale. Bones make up about 15% of our body weight. And the bones of overweight people weigh more than those of normal weight. But it's not the bones that cause obesity. The more you weigh, the higher the bone density and thickness of the bones, as they have to carry more weight. But it is, after all, the weight that causes the bones to weigh more and not the bones that cause obesity.

3 weeks in bed makes you 30 years older?

In an old study where healthy men were bedridden for 3 weeks, it was found that they were actually the equivalent of 30 years older if you look at their physical fitness. When you are bedridden or just very physically inactive, you lose muscle mass and bone density decreases as the body is not being used enough. Unfortunately, muscles are broken down much faster than they are rebuilt. It takes 10 times as long to regain muscle strength as it does to lose muscle strength. Therefore, it is a good idea to maintain your training.

By Josefine Huusom