The armchair-sofa season is back - and with it, the days of beer and fatty snacks − in essence, the most unhealthy time of the year. Even those who, like me, jog in the park three times a week are again turning into couch potatoes. First there is the European Football Championships, then the Tour de France as well as Wimbledon and finally the Olympics. That translates into sitting around the clock?first in the office, then in front of the tube. 

Now hear this, sedentary ones: There is good news to assuage your guilty conscience. "Sport has made many people sick but has never made anyone healthy," said the German publisher of a book by Dutch biologist Midas Dekkers. "Nobody can improve his life or even prolong it with sports," argued Dekkers. "On the contrary, the chances of a premature death rise." 

For people who have fallen for the propaganda of the fitness industry, this is a harsh blow. So much sweat and toil, when one could have sat so happily on one's ever-expanding behind. The zeitgeist welcomes this kind of thinking. The wish to remain healthy without physical exertion corresponds nicely to the goal of getting rich without working.

Two-thirds of German men and half of German women have already made it. They have surpassed being merely well-fed and are earning an impressive return on their investment in health insurance premiums - in the form of extensive treatments for heart and cardiovascular diseases as well as diabetes. Pity those fools who invest and don't get their money's worth!

The biggest dupes are the athletes themselves. "Increased caloric consumption due to physical activity lowers the risk of numerous diseases," said Fernando Dimeo, head of sports medicine at Berlin's Charité hospital. "People who are physically in good shape have a higher life expectancy than those who are not, regardless of their body type and fat distribution," say researchers from the University of South Carolina.

A good example is Lance Armstrong. Doctors diagnosed him with testicular cancer in 1996. Many sports specialists claimed that Armstrong had beaten the cancer thanks largely to his regular physical activity. He won the Tour de France seven times, burning up to 10,000 calories per race. 

Athletics don't even allow us a decent depression. Medical researcher James Blumenthal has a very simple explanation for that: Those who work out have fun − and less time for "harmful" activities like television or junk food.

I'm afraid I'll never learn. I'll stay glued to the TV set during the sports marathon and, when it's over - and if I don't share the fate of the numerous people hospitalized in Britain after the penalty shootout between England and Argentina on June 30, 1998 - I'll keep jogging.