It’s harder to prescribe exercise, which takes time and effort and can be difficult to start for people who are depressed.
This detail is swept under the rug in this article and will most certainly be swept under the rug in discussion about the headline.
Telling people to exercise as a prescription only works once, after a patient is made aware that exercise would make them less depressed and they fail to undertake it, the advice becomes a convenient way of saying “just try harder” with different words.
I am not questioning the science here, I am pointing out the consequences of how it is framed.
I want to see more discussion about volitional and motivational deficits.
But people who have never been depressed don’t want to hear people say “people with depression literally find it more challenging, at times insurmountably so, to make themselves get up and go do.”
They think it’s just making excuses. No, there’s science behind it.
I’d imagine for many, they’re one and the same.