To reply to a digest, insert the relevant message header; don't reply to the digest header ------------------------------------------------------------- On Mon, 8 Dec 2003, Automatic digest processor wrote: > Is there any real evidence that jogging or running is bad for you? Of > course, running can be taken to the extreme with marathons or ultra- > marathons. But I would like to say to those running skeptics, go out an > look at the people getting good times in 5k races. They look to be in good > shape to me. Leaving aside the actual question (apart from anything else I don't have any personal data to go on), this strikes me as a slightly flawed methodology: the people who are getting good times in 5k races _at the moment_ are going to have to be pretty fit _at the moment_, because, if you assume you have to be fit to run well, you're by definition choosing to sample those for whom a lifestyle with running in it works to make them fit enough to run well at this point in their lives. The two questions I'd be intersted in are (i) what do people who were getting good 5k times 15-20 years ago (whether they are still running today or not) look like now (i.e., does success at running have any correlation long term with good or bad health)? and (ii) given a set of motivated people who start running, after some appropriate time period what proportion are `getting good 5k times' (i.e., is there any suggestion that there's something stopping everyone becoming a good 5k runner (and thus healthier), eg, some genetically endowed physical property that makes some people `suitable' for running)? Of course to be reliable the set of observed people would have to be of a reasonable size. (Note: a better statistician/experiment designer than I am could probably point out big flaws that would need to be controlled for in both those questions; I'm not claiming to be anything but an amateur at this.) Sorry to play the pedant again, particularly since other goals in my life mean I'm currently not living a very EvFit lifestyle :-( ___cheers,_dave_________________________________________________________ www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~tweed/ | `It's no good going home to practise email:[log in to unmask] | a Special Outdoor Song which Has To Be work tel:(0117) 954-5250 | Sung In The Snow' -- Winnie the Pooh ----------------------------------------------------------------- The FAQ for Evolutionary Fitness is at http://www.evfit.com/faq.htm To unsubscribe from the list send an e-mail to [log in to unmask] with the words SIGNOFF EVOLUTIONARY-FITNESS in the _body_ of the e-mail.