Working out and aging
On a recent visit to the United States, this writer had a chance to check out a community YMCA facility in Richmond, Virginia. It was quite a sizeable YMCA with various offerings including yoga, swimming, gym activities and free coffee. It is a not a free-of-charge facility. There are differing rates, depending on one’s income and also by the type of programs the user chooses. But what struck me was the large number of elderly citizens of the area happily working out on the yoga floor, pumping up muscles on the various health machines and actively engaging each other.
Their happy faces find evocations on the faces of elderly Korean women in swimming pools who often demonstrate Olympic-class swimming skills or on mountain climbers atop some mountain among Korea’s numerous peaks. Yet, it marks a contrast to scenes from Pagoda Park in downtown Seoul or on subways in Seoul, where elderly citizens are seen in sizeable numbers with absent looks on their faces.
Sure, a select portion of elderly Koreans can afford to enroll in private workout facilities at premium locales such as hotels or even private ones that command several tens of millions of won in yearly fees.
The question here though is just how integrated sports and exercise are in average Koreans’ lives. Sure Seoul has hosted the 1988 Summer Olympics and PyeongChang, Gangwon Province, will host the 2018 Winter Olympics next February. The South Korean national football team will be participating — for the ninth consecutive time — in the World Cup final in Russia next year. Thus in terms of so-called elite sports, South Korea has been doing relatively well. How about in terms of daily sports? Surely more Koreans are into walking, pilates and running. But how about the young students who have their college entrance exams looming above their heads? Do they have time to exercise?
I remember back in high school in the 1980s, gym was suddenly canceled as we headed nearer to the college entrance exam. Like everything else in life, habit is all-important, and I never really picked up exercising until in my late 20s. Would the story be any different for the elderly Koreans, those who are in their 60s, 70s and 80s? I wonder if they ever had time to fit in exercise as they worked long hours at their jobs, or sit forever to study at schools or cram schools in the heyday of Korea. I always wondered why local districts of Seoul or any regional municipalities never built stellar sports facilities in their communities, rather than more cookie-cutter apartments and buildings, in order to enhance the value of their community.
Since taking office, President Moon Jae-in has been announcing a series of measures to help Korean senior citizens, in particular those affected by the debilitating disease of dementia. The health ministry announced in September plans to create 205 new care centers over the next five years and more clinics specializing in the treatment of dementia. The plan also includes raising the state portion of insurance coverage for dementia patients. More Koreans — 10 percent of those aged 70 — are becoming afflicted by the as-yet incurable disease. But many experts have urged exercise, including Dr. Na Duk-lyul, a renowned neurologist at Samsung Medical Center, who urges exercise, exercise and exercise in his book titled “Brain Beauty.” He wrote that those who exercise daily have 80 percent less possibility of getting Alzheimer’s.
It is commendable that the government is taking aggressive steps to give help to patients and families with patients of dementia. The nagging factor is whether we — as in government, and each individual perhaps — could do more to live healthily by exercising. There has to be a concerted effort however on a societal level to make exercise a habit, rather than a fad or a lifestyle trend, for all Koreans.