The New York Times offers some hope today, telling us the concept that we should all be able to lose weight with just diet and exercise is a myth.

Check that out here: http://health.nytimes.com/ref/health/healthguide/esn-obesity-ess.html

In case you're not in the mood for reading at the moment, this article talks about science vs. what you hear from your friends, on the tv and at the gym about weight loss. Some people, not all people but some, are overweight because it's simply in their DNA. It also calls the concept of the nation being overweight because of our love of fast food  a "scapegoat" and says that the overweight frenzy, like many things, is the product of much media attention.

It could, perhaps, be a scapegoat to say that you're overweight because of your DNA, so watch out for that one.

One of my favorite parts of the article is the part that talks about how America, as a country, could have never necessarily eaten "healthy," because oftentimes I wonder what IS healthy? The word "health" is splattered across foods at the grocery store and on tv screens marketing products, but what is it? Who decided what is healthy? Is healthy subjective or objective? How can people say that America has grown significantly unhealth-ier if we don't know where health began?

"The meals we romanticize in the past somehow leave out the reality of what people were eating," is quoted in the article by Dr. Barry Glassner. "The average meal had whole milk and ended with pie...The typical meal had pleny of fat and calories."

The article also talks about misconceptions with exercise, though I have felt for a while that many are confused about what "eating a proper diet and getting exercise" means. It is particularly apparent to me that not everyone understands "exercisre" when I'm at the gym, and see a person walk on the treadmill for not even ten minutes, at an incredibly slow pace and then hops off and leaves.

People, that is not exercise.

Exercise is commonly defined by at least 15 minutes of cardio-or enough to get your heart rate going and your body jumpstarted.

So, check it out, let me know what you think.