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Comment by CydeWeys | Hacker News Reader

Everything you mention requires lots of research. "Eat well" is meaningless, for example. Depending on who you ask that might mean anything from paleo to its near polar opposite, vegan. The scientific consensus is not in. Hell, it's not even clear if eating whole eggs is good or bad for you, the recommendations keep seesawing.

Similarly ... How much exercise and what kinds? There's plenty of people who hurt or even kill themselves by doing the wrong kind of exercise, or overdoing it. Serious long distance runners, for example, die younger than more moderate exercisers, and they have terrible knee, foot, and hip problems past middle age.

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"You should be healthy by eating healthy food and doing healthy things!"

You're presenting things as facts here, what are your sources to claim something extraordinary like "serious runners die younger"?

Pardon my laziness, but this should suffice as a starting point. https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/news/20140401/too-muc...

Sam Harris' podcast had an episode with Gary Taubes where you can hear some interesting facts about there not being a consensus on what foods are good for you. Your example about eggs is a good one.

https://samharris.org/podcasts/what-should-we-eat/

Re: exercise, I think it's clearly been established that the positive effects outweigh the negative ones. A few people may be killed cycling to work, but overall it's better for your personal health to cycle to work than to drive.

An extreme interpretation of any sport becomes difficult for your health, this does not include running 5-10Km distances.

> Similarly ... How much exercise and what kinds?

An anecdote. I have a friend who used to walk everywhere in the city. They were always overweight but healthy. Flash forward to several years later. They are in the thick of a PhD program. The last couple years they have gained considerable weight. Lots of inactivity (sitting in a room all day) coupled with lack of sleep and not the best eating habits. And I recently learned that they have trouble walking, say, a parking lot distance. And their knees will start to hurt on a scale of 6 on a 10 scale if they do too much walking.

Too little exercise if accompanied by other less healthy life actions (sleep deprivation, less healthy diet) can rob you of one thing you might take for granted: mobility or the ability to walk across a long parking lot without strain.

There is no one size fits all recipe for how much physical activity. Your health is ultimately your responsibility.

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