In my own (somewhat humble) opinion, articles like these get the headline and angle completely wrong. It's backwards.
Animals' natural state, including humans', is lots of exercise. This is the default; it is what our bodies and brains are adapted to doing.[-]
A result like this demonstrates that a lack of exercise is harmful. Failure to exercise inhibits the brain from functioning properly as it is adapted to doing.
[-] "Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution." -- Dobzhansky
This occurs with dietary reporting too. Deficiencies in a population are reported as if alleviating the deficiency is an unnatural enhancement. I'm glad you mentioned this.
Pardon me if I don't grasp the meaning of this sentence. What is the link between deficiencies in a given population and its reporting and how does it relate with unnatural enhancement ?
Do you mean deficiencies shouldn't be reported or taken into account because the solutions (ie: eat better) to these situations are unnatural enhancements (dietary supplements, daily fixed and predictable food input, etc.) ?
Surely we are still evolving. Since civilization started, therefore we stopped running around or did less running, more than 100 if not perhaps 1000 if not even more generations have passed. During that time, we were evolving, thus adapting to the environment of a civilisation and moving away from the hunter gather running environment.
Rats do not have a civilisation. Humans do. Rats may need running, humans might not. For humans, demanding intellectual work may be better or just as good as running as far as cognition is concerned.
Animals' natural state, including humans', is lots of exercise. This is the default; it is what our bodies and brains are adapted to doing.[-]
A result like this demonstrates that a lack of exercise is harmful. Failure to exercise inhibits the brain from functioning properly as it is adapted to doing.
[-] "Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution." -- Dobzhansky