来源：《卫报》
原文刊登日期：2021年6月6日
[A] It’s normal to exercise
[B] Our ancestors were hard-working, strong and fast
[C] You can’t lose weight walking
[D] Avoiding exertion means you are lazy
[E] Sitting is the new smoking
[F] Running will wear out your knees
[G] It’s normal to be less active as we age
Most adults in high-income countries don’t get the minimum of 150 minutes per week of physical activity recommended by most health professionals. I think we can do better by looking beyond the weird world in which we live to consider how our ancestors manage to be physically active. This kind of evolutionary anthropological perspective reveals 5 unhelpful myths about exercise.
高收入国家的大多数成年人没有达到大多数健康专业人士建议的每周至少150分钟的体育锻炼。我认为我们可以做得更好，超越我们生活的这个奇怪的世界，去思考我们的祖先是如何进行体育锻炼的。这种进化人类学的观点揭示了关于运动的5个无益的误区。
Myth 1: _____________
Whenever you move to do anything, you’re engaging in physical activity. In contrast, exercise is voluntary physical activity undertaken for the sake of fitness. You may think exercise is normal, but it’s a very modern behaviour. Instead, for millions of years, humans were physically active for only two reasons: when it was necessary or rewarding. Necessary physical activities included getting food and doing other things to survive. Rewarding activities included playing, dancing or training to have fun or to develop skills. But no one in the stone age ever went for a five-mile jog, or lifted weights whose sole purpose was to be lifted.
Myth 2: _____________
A common myth is that people uncontaminated by civilisation are incredible natural-born athletes who are super-strong, super-fast and able to run marathons easily. Not true. Most hunter-gatherers are reasonably fit, but they are only moderately strong and not especially fast. Their lives aren’t easy, but on average they spend only about two to three hours a day doing moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. It is neither normal nor necessary to be ultra-fit and ultra-strong.
Myth 3: _____________
Until recently just about every weight-loss programme involved exercise. Recently, however, we keep hearing that we can’t lose weight from exercise because most workouts don’t burn that many calories and just make us hungry so we eat more. The truth is that you can lose more weight much faster through diet rather than exercise, especially moderate exercise such as 150 minutes a week of brisk walking. However, longer durations and higher intensities of exercise have been shown to promote gradual weight loss. Regular exercise also helps prevent weight gain or regain after diet. Every diet benefits from including exercise.
Myth 4: _____________
Many people are scared of running because they’re afraid it will ruin their knees. These worries aren’t totally unfounded since knees are indeed the most common location of runners’ injuries. But knees and other joints aren’t like a car’s shock absorbers that wear out with overuse. Instead, running, walking and other activities have been shown to keep knees healthy. The strategy to avoiding knee pain is to learn to run properly and train sensibly.
Myth 5: _____________
After many decades of hard work, don’t you deserve to kick up your heels and take it easy in your golden years? Not so. Despite rumours that our ancestors’ life was nasty and short, hunter-gatherers who survive childhood typically live about seven decades, and they continue to work moderately as they age. The truth is we evolved to be grandparents in order to be active in order to provide food for our children and grandchildren. In turn, staying physically active as we age stimulates myriad repair and maintenance processes that keep our bodies humming. Numerous studies find that exercise is healthier the older we get.
答案：1A 2B 3C 4F 5G