Letter to the Editor
Exercise for health
Published Tuesday, May 6, 2008
May 1, 2008
To the editor:
As a member of the American College of Sports Medicine and the professional health and fitness community, I’m committed to encouraging physical activity for the health benefits it brings all people. As we prepare to observe the inaugural Exercise is Medicine Month (May), the case is compelling:
Exercise and physical activity are powerful medicine indeed, helping prevent or treat numerous chronic conditions such as hypertension, cardiac disease and diabetes.
Research shows significant health benefits for those who engage in at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity most days of the week.
If there were a drug that could so powerfully fight America’s obesity epidemic and the health implications it brings, surely every physician would be eager to prescribe it.
This is the impetus behind Exercise is Medicine, a program of ACSM supported by the American Medical Association. One objective is to encourage physicians to “prescribe” exercise during patient visits.
Able patients are advised to participate in at least 30 minutes of physical activity and 10 minutes of stretching and light muscle training five days a week.
Let’s observe Exercise is Medicine Month by taking these important steps:
Physicians, please talk with every patient about exercise and, as appropriate, refer them to a health fitness professional. Counseling them on the benefits of physical activity and what it can do for their long-term health and well-being is critical and should be a standard part of your practice.
Patients, ask a few questions about your health status the next time you visit your doctor. Are you at a healthy weight? Taking your current health status into consideration, what types of exercise are best and safest for you? Is there a certified trainer or registered dietitian you should visit to improve your health?
Parents, give your children the gift of lifelong wellness by being a role model and supporting them in establishing a habit of lifelong physical activity. Have fun being active as a family.
To learn more about Exercise is Medicine, please visit www.exerciseismedicine.org.
Let’s all enjoy a regular, healthy dose of exercise!
Community Discussion
Newsminer.com doesn't necessarily condone the comments here, nor does it review every post. Read our full user's agreement.
This is the typical medical perspective on "exercise": abstract, completely divorced from any immediate pleasure or social good. I urge people to reject it, in favor of something better.
"Exercise" is an abstraction. It can take place in the confined solitude of your own home, the open solitude of the woods, or the more crowded solitude of the treadmill at a gym. In itself, exercise is unrelated to environment, to pleasure, or to community. The doctor who prescribes it does not care whether you are picking up trash, meeting neighbors, keeping an eye on the drug dealer down the street, doing your shopping, making friends, or performing a community service. He or she wants you to move your body enough to raise your heart rate by so much, for so long, so often.
Our ability to abstract the notion of exercise from any social utility that physical exertion might serve, and the need to prescribe this abstraction, testify to the fragmentation — the "dis-integration" — of our lives.
Instead, why not choose a life of integration, where daily needs, personal pleasures, and social goods are met by activities that merely *happen* to involve some exertion?
More at: http://fairbankspedestrian.wordpress.com...
--Paul Adasiak
I always enjoy seeing your name appear Mr. Adasiak - I am assured there will be an insightful and well presented comment. Thank you for your posts.
Good lord Paul couldnt you just say to plan your exercise in a way that promotes integration, daily needs, personal pleasures and social goods through involvement? Short, sweet and to the point, but then again long winded speeches are good for the cardio...
I would like to echo Birdie's comment. I, too, am glad when the Pedestrian's comments appear. They usually give me something to think about.
Why so grumpy today, JB? :)
I disagree that the letter was enforcing an "abstract" notion of exercise - there are some pretty specific benefits to "exercise" listed, first, and second nothing in the phrase "Able patients are advised to participate in at least 30 minutes of physical activity and 10 minutes of stretching and light muscle training five days a week" precludes one from thinking "I should do that while walking in the woods to enjoy the trees!" or "I should head out to Angel Rocks and check out the spring flowers!"
In short, just because you picture an impersonal 30 minutes on a treadmill when you read "exercise" doesn't mean the rest of us do.
Great letter, great message. The results of these simple life changes can (and do) bring "immediate pleasure" to the individual and certainly "social good". If my father hadn't integrated these (and other) changes more than six years ago his heart attack three years ago could have been fatal - instead there was no damage to the heart muscle and he's walking me down the aisle next year.
Exercise is the act, the benefits, the reward all rolled up into one. Whether you choose to "integrate" it or do it "for its own sake" you are doing yourself - and your family - a great service.
Christina Uticone: "... and second nothing in the phrase "Able patients ..." precludes one from thinking "I should do that while walking in the woods to enjoy the trees!"
In fact, I agree with you! If you happen to couple "exercise" with some aesthetic pleasure, like enjoying the trees or the spring flowers, they you've killed two birds with one stone: satisfied your aesthetic appetite and helped your body. If additionally you jog in your neighborhood, you stand a good chance of running into neighbors and friends, thus satisfying a social need and strengthening neighborhood ties. If you finish your jog by stopping at a cafe for tea and a muffin, you've tied your exercise in with a nutritive component -- not to mention, you're likely to chat with people there (though not if you stop at some drive-through coffee wagon). If you can pick up some garbage along your way home, you've made your town a nicer place for yourself and others to live. Any time something that's good for you is coupled with things you enjoy (or find immediately useful), you're more likely to do it -- and the more pleasant and useful activities you can tie in, the more often it will happen.
(Also, imagine how much time would be spent if the activities of aesthetic enjoyment, neighborhood-strengthening, socializing, nutrition, garbage removal, and bodily exercise had each to be done separately! The integrated life leaves us far much more time.)
The problem with the abstract concept of "exercise" is that the word does not really invite us to think of pleasant and useful things to do. Perhaps for some -- for those among whom the habit is firmly established -- it's easier to think that way. But I suspect that most people have trouble making that leap; our national obesity rates testify to that. How much better if people were able to walk to work and to all their shopping, or play pick-up soccer games in their neighborhoods. My guess is that most of them wouldn't *need* to think of exercise, because it was already a part of their lives.
JB, you make me chuckle. You're right, I *can* be long-winded. And I've probably done it again.
Post a comment
Commenting requires registration.