More leads to less
Last week, my column dealt with the obesity epidemic sweeping America and the variety of suggestions that have been pushed forward to correct it.
We as a nation are getting heavier (read fatter), and weaker and while the average life expectancy hasn’t declined. Yet, the average enjoyment of life has. My idea of the golden years doesn’t involve spending all of one’s gold for operations, drugs and therapies.
We are all physical beings. The toll the years take on our bodies is more the result of how we treat them as opposed to simply the passage of time. The human body was designed to move and do, not just sit and watch.
After reading several sources on the effects of daily exercise, there are a number of broad areas that physical fitness can have great impact.
The most important recipient of physical exercise is your heart muscle, the most important muscle in your body. A stronger heart muscle lowers blood pressure and improves blood flow. Improving those two areas increases working capacity which means you can do more with less effort. In addition, improved heart muscle greatly reduces the chances of having a stroke along with heart attacks.
Excess body fat greatly increases the chance to develop diabetes. Even for those with diabetes, improved physical condition lessens its impact significantly.
Obesity itself is a gateway to a myriad list of health problems. Simply put, the more obese someone becomes, the less they can do physically, and the less they do physically, the weaker and smaller their muscles become. Growing weakness depresses the immune system which allows disease to enter more easily.
As I had mentioned in the previous column, back pain has become the most prevalent complaint by patients to their health care practitioners. Excess weight bearing down on the lower back exacerbates the problem.
Exercise actually promotes bone formation and offsets bone loss due to aging. The more active folks are, the stronger the bones are and the reverse is also true.
One of the most important effects of being physically fit is psychological. Your mood and how you feel about yourself improves. Fitness reduces anxiety and depression is an excellent way to manage stress.
Of course, the biggest question people face is just how do we get physically fit. Do we all need to get gym memberships and hit the weights?
The core of physical fitness centers in the heart and lungs. Just moving your body more can start the process headed in the right direction. For those who haven’t run in a long time, suddenly jogging wouldn’t be a good idea.
Actually “jogging” isn’t really good for anybody. By jogging, I mean running flat footed somewhere with each step “jogging” every part of your body. Continually slamming your weight into all your joints will create new problems. Running on your toes is nature’s way of providing shock absorbers and it would be far better to run one mile slowly than to jog five miles.
For the overweight and out of shape, the best beginning remedy would be just walking. More walking at home, more standing to do things, and just more moving your body from place to place. Cutting down on the time sitting before a computer/TV/ video game might help.
The other side of the fitness coin is nutrition. The old saying that you are what you eat has never been more true.
I grew up in a time when most small towns has maybe one or two fast food places (in my town, Dairy Queen and Dog-N-Suds). My family rarely ate out with my mom cooking all our meals. Drinking sodas was a once in a while thing as was eating candy.
The quantities of candy and soda ingested by folks over the past few decades has tripled according to an article in the National Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Vast quantities of candy is marketed and consumed for Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Easter every year as the large displays vendors set out in most stores can attest, especially big box ones.
The combination of people becoming less active while consuming less nutritious food along with higher sugar intakes is decimating our nation’s health outlook. With healthcare becoming more expensive and harder to access due to governmental intrusion, it is incumbent on all Americans to take control of their own healthcare by needing less of it. Becoming healthier through their diet and exercising more often is the best way to go.
Eating more healthy foods like fruits and vegetables and exercising more will lead to less trips to the doctors and less suffering in the future.
••• Editor’s note: John McGee is an award-winning columnist and sports writer. He is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The TIMES. He can be contacted through at prtnews@ nwaonline.com.