[Mars008]

If that was true athletes would be the youngest, mentally healthiest, and in many other ways better than average. But that's not the case if you look at them. My guess exercise is beneficial only to some level, after that it has a big toll on everything. Including IQ, mental and general health, and so on.

[derektank]

>My guess exercise is beneficial only to some level, after that it has a big toll on everything. Including IQ, mental and general health, and so on.

What reason do you have for thinking this? As far as I’ve read, there’s no indication that athletes perform worse than the population average on any of these metrics.

Athletes outperformed non-athletes on standardized tests in a 2014 study of Texas high schoolers.[1] Professional soccer players/footballers outperform the population average on a variety of cognitive assessments.[2] Sub-4 minute mile runners have better longevity and lower risk of cardiovascular disease than average.[3] With the exception of contact sports like American Football which involve serious risks of injury, I can’t think of any example of elite athletes that are worse off on quality of life metrics than average people.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4831893/

[2] https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2415126122

[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38729629/

[esperent]

It is the case, actually.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00256...

Here's another study, although for some reason it's 95% male, it shows athletic men live an average 3.5 years longer. It also shows athletic women live 0.7 years less, but due to the low number of females in the study I wouldn't read much into that.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11979035/

[sfn42]

They are. Fit people are generally just better than unfit people in almost every way. More physically capable, fewer heath issues, more energy, more attractive, more disciplined, more intelligent and so on. Some of those are probably not entirely causal, for example bad health can prevent exercise. Lower intelligence is correlated with obesity. Getting fit takes discipline but it also builds discipline.

So yeah I'm pretty sure that if you compare 1000 fit people and 1000 unfit people you'll see a very clear difference in happiness, health, success in life etc.

We're not made to be sedentary.

[galleywest200]

Being an athlete and doing maintenance exercises are two different levels of exertion.

[fdsf2]

Mike Ohearn.