Running still good for you ∞

Lately it has been fashionable to condemn running as unhealthy in general. For example, John Kiefer’s popular article, Why Women Should Not Run, actually claims that running makes you fatter, and erodes muscle and bone. Yikes!

All this may come as a surprise to you, since you’ve probably noticed that most runners seem pretty fit compared to the average Walmart shopper. Running can be hard on bodies, but it takes mental gymnastics and abuse of the evidence to believe that “that cardio above a walk or below a sprint is bad for you.” It’s preposterous.

Sol Orwell and Skip Bouma of Examine.com have written a thoughtful evisceration of Kiefer’s article. It’s a case study in bad science writing that represents the trend of “anti-running claims making the rounds of the blogosphere lately.” According to Bouma and Orwell, Kiefer’s article is littered with unsupported claims, leaps of logic, and — above all — classic bogus citations (particularly clean misses and backfires). It would be hard for anyone to take Keifer’s article seriously after reading this analysis!