With the current rate of fat gain in America and other western countries, formal exercise does not seem to be the effective enough of an answer in the fight against obesity...that is just my personal opinion.
I believe that in addition to weight management through nutrition we really have to take a look at our culture and society from the perspective of general physical activity in day-to-day living.
Look at the development of our technology. The main objective for most of the devices we have in our house, on our yard and in the garage, is to make life easier. Garage door openers, remote controls, cell phones, computers have been created with the intent to make our life PHYSICALLY easier....(or financially more productive)
Even the new exercise machines are easier and more comfortable and less inconvenient. Well, its all good as long as we realize that the equation of all that is simple and straight forward:
EASY, COMFORTABLE, CONVENIENT = LESS ENERGY USED = LESS CALORIES BURNT
So, now that we have created a world where everything is so remote-controlled and easy that we have to go to the gym to participate in artificially arranged "physical work"(,which we still effectively avoid), we are wondering how to deal with the consequences.
The physical work that we used to have to do every day has now become a hobby that we still have to do or we get health problems that we really did not have when we did physical work.
So, how do you rewind the situation? How do you re-establish some of those good daily physical tasks? I know... that is pretty hard, mentally and physically.
Just think about it, getting up from the chair to add some wood in the stove or even just to change the TV channel does not seem like much. But count how many times you would do that during your lifetime and how many calories would be burnt altogether.
What about that garage door opener? Lifting the door several times adds up adds up little by little. Snow blowers? Now we have abandoned an opportunity to shovel snow too.
Not a big deal you might say....I say those little every day movements together formed the foundation for weight management through physical activity. Then we were able to compliment that with some additional exercise at the gym or on the court if we still had extra energy.
When physical activity as a form of recreation was introduced it was mostly for fun, not for health reasons. The health benefits were known but they were not the main reason for movement. Now we have forgotten about the fun and the work we did in the yards, woods, fields and in the homes has become an obligatory moment of convenient boredom on an elliptical "going-no-where-machine".
Maybe we could start by building roads for pedestarians, bikers and rollerbladers instead of for motorized vehicles.....sounds like utopia at least in New Jersey.
Take the stairs today!
Tommi
Interesting OBESITY-article if you are interested.
PS: So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do. Benjamin Franklin.
