Green 1 Bonnie Green Professor Ellen Harcourt WRT 1010, Section 09 November 24, 2013 Its Not About

Being ThinIts About Being Healthy Whether you are driving to work or school or the supermarket, there is surely one thing that you cannot help but notice every couple of blocks: fast food joints. Modern America is rife with obesity and other epidemics such as diabetes and heart disease due to fast food specialties such as Big Macs, chocolate frostie milkshakes, and, of course, French fries. The triple threat of the fast food industrya deadly combination of excessive fat, salt, and sugarhas raised the number of deaths due to heart disease. In fact, it is the number one killer in America of both men and women (Insel, et al. 16-17). So how can we, as a society, fix this? A good place to start is for people to stop eating the fast food, but hearts would still be physically weak, arteries still clogged, and diabetes will not just magically go away. There is no magic pill to help obese people lose the weight they have accumulated and make them healthy, but there is something they can do: exercise. Physical activity has multitudes of benefits, including losing weight, improving the cardiovascular system, improving the other internal workings of the body, and improving overall quality of life. Starting with the obvious, exercise helps you naturally shed extra weight off your body. Of course, life is not like The Biggest Loser; one cannot expect to lose twelve pounds every week. First of all, one is not spending fourteen (or more) hours a day at the gym; one has to work or go to school, and that usually involves a fair bit of sitting. Secondly, weight loss is a long, steady process. One should not expect to lose more than one-half to one pound each week (Insel,

Green 2 et al. 326). So where does one start? Well, a little exercise is better than nothing at all. In general, to achieve maximum benefits, you should gradually work up to an aerobic session lasting at least 30 minutes most days of the week (Exercise for Lower Cholesterol and a Healthy Heart). In exercise, once you have been doing aerobic activity (activities that require lots of oxygen and cause heavier breathing than normal) for twenty to thirty minutes, you start extracting energy from fat (Insel, et al. 441) and working your way into a healthier person! There is no debate; the most important muscle in your body is your heart. So, naturally, you are going to want to do whatever it takes to keep it strong. When it comes to heart disease, The majority of individuals under the age of 65 have one or more risk factors; the most important are age, genetic factors, hyperlipidemia [or high fat levels in the bloodstream], hypertension, diabetes, and cigarette smoking. While age and genetic factors cannot be changed, the possibility of acting on the other factors is evident. . . . Regular aerobic exercise, associated with a proper diet, is able to improve the totality of modifiable cardiovascular risk factors. (Ganzit and Stefanini 21) Increasing your cardiovascular fitness also can lower blood pressure, improve circulation, and increase your HDL cholesterol levels to help remove extra plaque from your bloodstream (Exercise). As before stated, the benefits from exercise are plentiful; not only will it improve your body shape and heart health, but it can improve your mental and cellular health as well. When you exercise, your body makes endorphinsfeel-good chemicals in the brain. You can actually start to feel better within a few minutes of moving (Top 12 Rewards of Exercise). Not only that, but exercising will slash the levels of stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. You will also have a boosted self-esteem, better productivity, and a better nights sleep (Top

Green 3 12). For the many Americans who have Type 2 Diabetes, exercise is also an important piece of controlling their disease. According to the American Diabetes Association, When you are active, your cells become more sensitive to insulin so it can work more efficiently. Your cells also remove glucose using a mechanism totally separate from insulin during exercise. So, [if you exercise] consistently . . . you may be able to take fewer diabetes pills or less insulin. (Physical Activity is Important) Weight-bearing exercises do not only tone muscles, but they also strengthen your bones and reduce your risk for osteoporosis and bone fractures later in life (Physical Activity). But one of the best benefits of exercise is that it will give you a better quality of life. If you are sedentary all day, be it at your job or at school, you will not achieve all the benefits of exercise; Higher amounts of daily total sitting time are associated with greater risk of all-cause mortality and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity appears to attenuate the hazardous association (Chau, et al). However, if you have a caloric expenditure of approximately 1,000 Kcal per week, [it] appears to be necessary for significant reduction in mortality risk (Kokkinos). Exercise, however, should not be solely done by adults who need to reverse any health damage they may have donechildren need to exercise, too! In 2013, Russell and Limle conducted a study to see how participating in sports as a child influenced them to be involved in sports and exercise as young adults. The results were not surprising: However, participants' perceptions of their youth-sport experience did predict physical activity enjoyment as young adults, indicating that positive youth-sport experiences combined with early sport diversification can lead to long-term enjoyment and involvement in physical activity. Early sport diversification also allows children to

Green 4 acquire a good repertoire of fundamental motor skills needed for future participation in physical activities. (Provence) If children are athletic, though, they must have the nutritional support to meet their higher energy expenditures. The consequences of chronic low energy intake [in athletic youth] include: short stature and delayed puberty, nutrition deficiencies and dehydration, menstrual irregularities, poor bone health, increased incidence of injuries, increased risk of developing eating disorders. (Insel, et al.456) Its simple and logical: if you build good exercise and eating habits as a child, you will take them with you into adulthood. However, one of the biggest complaints when it comes to exercise is that people just do not have enough time. They assume that they have to have a gym membership and spend at least an hour on a mundane machine. That is not true, however. All it takes is a little compromise and imagination. For example, if there is a specific show you watch every night on TV, instead of just sitting there on the couch, you could be marching in place, walking on a treadmill, or building up miles on a stationary bicycle while you watch. The convenient part about exercise is that you do not have to do it all at once in a given day; you can break up the thirty or so minutes that you want to exercise in a given day into smaller pieces that seem less intimidating. If the distance is not too great, you could ride your bike or walk to work or school; a ten minute ride there in the morning and a ten minute ride home in the evening adds up to twenty minutes! The important part of exercise, though, is to remember to keep a positive self-image. Dont think of it as Im ugly and fat; Im exercising to become pretty or thin. Think of it as Im currently in an unhealthy state of being, and Im exercising to become healthy. Praise

Green 5 yourself when you meet your exercise goal for the day, known as positive self-talk (Insel, et al. 324). And once you are healthy, do not stop there. You need to maintain that level of fitness that you have achieved, so you can reap the benefits of exercise even more.

Green 6 Works Cited Chau, Josephine Y., et al. "Daily Sitting Time and all-Cause Mortality: A Meta-Analysis." PLoS One 8.11 (2013)ProQuest. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. Exercise for Lower Cholesterol and a Healthy Heart. WebMD Medical Publisher. WebMD, n.d. Web. 19 November 2013. Ganzit, Gian Pasquale, and Luca Stefanini. Cardiovascular Diseases and Physical Activities. Torino: SEEd Srl, 2012. Print. Insel, Paul, et al. Discovering Nutrition, Fourth Edition. Burlington: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2013. Print. Kokkinos, Peter. "Physical Activity, Health Benefits, and Mortality Risk." ISRN Cardiology (2012)ProQuest. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. Physical Activity is Important n.p. American Diabetes Association. n.d. Web. 19 November 2013. Provence, Jeremy E. "Does Participation in Youth Sport Influence Sport and Physical Activity in Young Adulthood?" JOPERD--The Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance 84.7 (2013): 25. Physical Therapy and Sports Medicine Collection. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. Smith, Michael W., MD Top 12 Rewards of Exercise. WebMD Medical Publisher. WebMD. 19 April 2013. Web. 19 November 2013.