Sunday, March 30, 2014

SKG Physical activity (The Benefits of Physical Activity)

Although there are no sure-fire recipes for good health, the mixture of healthy eating and regular exercise comes awfully close. Most of The Nutrition Source is dedicated to singing the praises of a good diet. This is where physical activity gets its due.

Regular exercise or physical activity helps many of the body’s systems function better, keeps heart disease, diabetes, and a host of other diseases at bay, and is a key ingredient for losing weight. According to the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, (1) being physically active on a regular basis

Improves your chances of living longer and living healthier
Helps protect you from developing heart disease and stroke or its precursors, high blood pressure and undesirable blood lipid patterns
Helps protect you from developing certain cancers, including colon and breast cancer, and possibly lung and endometrial (uterine lining) cancer
Helps prevent type 2 diabetes (what was once called adult-onset diabetes) and metabolic syndrome (a constellation of risk factors that increases the chances of developing heart disease and diabetes; read more about simple steps to prevent diabetes)
Helps prevent the insidious loss of bone known as osteoporosis
Reduces the risk of falling and improves cognitive function among older adults
Relieves symptoms of depression and anxiety and improves mood
Prevents weight gain, promotes weight loss (when combined with a lower-calorie diet), and helps keep weight off after weight loss
Improves heart-lung and muscle fitness
Improves sleep
The Cost of Inactivity

If exercise and regular physical activity benefit the body, a sedentary lifestyle does the opposite, increasing the chances of becoming overweight and developing a number of chronic diseases. Despite all the good things going for it, only about 30 percent of adult Americans report they get regular physical activity during their leisure time—and about 40 percent of Americans say they get no leisure-time physical activity at all. (25) Studies  that measure people’s physical activity using special motion sensors (called accelerometers) suggest that self-reports of physical activity probably are over-estimated. (26). According to analyses by a team from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention, inactivity was associated with more than 9 million cases of cardiovascular disease in 2001, at an estimated direct medical cost of nearly $24 billion. (2) Another CDC analysis suggests that because individuals who are physically active have significantly lower annual direct medical costs than those who are inactive, getting people to become more active could cut yearly medical costs in the U.S. by more than $70 billion. (3)

Being a “couch potato” may be harmful even for people who get regular exercise. (4) The Nurses’ Health Study, for example, is one of many, many studies to find a strong link between television watching and obesity. (5) Researchers followed more than 50,000 middle-aged women for six years, surveying their diet and activity habits. They found that for every two hours the women spent watching television each day, they had a 23 percent higher risk of becoming obese and 14 percent higher risk of developing diabetes. Interestingly, it didn’t matter if the women were avid exercisers: The more television they watched, the more likely they were to gain weight or develop diabetes, regardless of how much leisure-time activity and walking they did. Long hours of sitting at work also increased the risk of obesity and diabetes.

More recently, studies have found that people who spend more time each day watching television, sitting, or riding in cars  have a greater chance of dying early than people who spend less time on their duffs. (6-8) Researchers speculate that sitting for hours on end may change peoples’ metabolism in ways that promote obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic conditions. (4, 7) It is also possible that sitting is a marker for a broader sedentary lifestyle.


In sum, a morning jog or brisk lunchtime walk brings many health benefits—but these may not entirely make up for a day spent in front of the computer or an evening in front of the television set. So as you plan your daily activity routine, remember that cutting down on “sit time” may be just as important as increasing “fit time.”