From the time our mothers told us as kids to eat our vegetables and our middle-school physical education teachers told us to run up and down the basketball court, we have known that vegetables and exercise are good for us.
Nutrition and exercise are inextricably linked to our body weight, health, and even our mortality. However, the recommendations we hear so often to eat healthily and exercise need to be revisited because, it turns out, the subject is not as straightforward as you think.
For example, low cardiovascular fitness is such a strong risk factor for metabolic syndrome that not even a healthy diet can diminish the risk. And, although eating donuts and French fries undoubtedly affects your health and mortality, when you're very fit, the relation between unhealthy eating and mortality is attenuated to the point that it is no longer significant. In the face of a lower-quality diet-perhaps one that includes donuts and lacks vegetables-exercise mitigates and, in some cases, even erases its effects, reducing your risk of disease.
New knowledge and ideas change our thoughts and our minds. They even change the world.
Delving into the large body of scientific research on the subject, Dr. Jason Karp explores the impact of nutrition and exercise on four key pillars of well-being-body weight, health, mortality, and performance-to answer the question on many people's minds:
Can you outrun a donut? 
