On Monday, July 9, 2007, Robert Lustig – Professor of Pediatric Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco – was featured on Norman Swan’s ABC Radio show. The topic of discussion was obesity and associated factors.

Prof. Lustig clearly identified a number of important areas when considering the prevalence and development of obesity in adults and children.

For many years I have been explaining the need for more exercise in the community and have discussed that exercise is not about burning calories. Here is what Prof. Lustig had to say on that front:

“The question is why does exercise work in obesity? Because it burns calories? That’s ridiculous. Twenty minutes of jogging is one chocolate chip cookie, I mean you can’t do it. One Big Mac requires three hours of vigorous exercise to work that off, that’s not the reason that exercise is important, exercise is important for three reasons exclusive of the fact that it burns calories. Read more »