Helpful reminders for a healthy life and outlook
My grandpa, Pasquale, and my Uncle Joe (his son) owned a barbershop on the Baldwin Wallace University campus in Berea, Ohio. This testosterone-filled dwelling was big enough to house two barber chairs and at least 15 sturdy captain’s chairs spread along the room’s perimeter, where all the characters from the college and around town hung out for coffee, “man-talk,” and the occasional haircut.
Typically, a half-eaten box of doughnuts sat on the appointment desk next to the small, blaring, black-and-white television, where sports updates and news items went mostly unnoticed unless the conversation died down. Now and then, an apprehensive, self-conscious mom would walk in requesting a haircut for her young boy, and the room would go silent as she stammered and smiled nervously—while clearly being evaluated by a room full of wolves.
For a 12-year-old like me, the place was as close to manhood as I could have imagined. If I hung out there for a while, I’d hear a good share of cussing, catch a flash-glance of a poorly hidden girlie magazine, and hear the tales and braggadocio of old-timers, which I relished. However, I was basically an intern at a chauvinistic training ground. One feature I didn’t enjoy was the constant blue cloud that hung over the room as cigarette smoking in the mid-1970s was as prevalent as coffee shops are today. My grandpa, uncle, and father were practically chain smokers, and I, as an asthmatic pre-teen, could only last in the room for a half-hour at a time before hacking and coughing forced me out the door.
One day, I perused the rotating paperback stand at the local Woolworth’s, and I came across a book co-sponsored by the American Red Cross and the American Lung Association. It told the true tales of the type of damage done to a body when a person smokes, and it was not pretty. Honestly, up to that point, most people were unaware of the real dangers of smoking. I dug in my pocket for change, bought that little gem, and pedaled straight to the barbershop.
Never a shy kid, I walked into the shop and began reading aloud from the book, spouting off statistics that would scare the devil out of any smoker. I even went into detail about how dangerous secondhand smoke was to innocent bystanders. Within a week, my dad, uncle, and grandpa quit smoking, and two of the three stuck to it. Many of the men in the room were also affected, and “the day little Ronnie brought the book” was mentioned by barbershop regulars for many years to come.
The Dangers Of Inactivity
Today, my friends, I “bring the book” to you as presented below, including startling facts about the life-shortening effects of physical inactivity. So, put down your remotes, silence your cell phones, and stop binge-watching the latest streaming series. I’ve got some facts to share, and they’re worth a read.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines physical activity as any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that requires the expenditure of energy. Going further, physical activity refers to all movement, including during leisure time, for transport to and from places, and as part of a person’s work or domestic activities. Both moderate and vigorous-intensity physical activity can improve health. Popular ways to be active include walking, cycling, wheeling, sports, active recreation, and play, and can be done at any level of skill. This is why people constantly hear advice like “take the stairs instead of the elevator,” “park far from the building instead of right next to the door,” “walk your dog every day,” etc.
Evidently, a lack of physical activity is one of the leading risk factors for non-communicable diseases and mortality. People who are insufficiently active have a 20% to 30% increased risk of death compared to those who are sufficiently active. Regular physical activity is associated with the following:
- In children and adolescents, improved physical fitness, cardiometabolic health, bone health, cognitive outcomes, mental health, and reduced body fat
- In adults and seniors, reduced risk of all-cause mortality, risk of cardiovascular disease mortality, incident hypertension, incident site-specific cancers, incident type-2 diabetes, and falls, and improvement in mental health, cognitive health, sleep, and measures of body fat
- For pregnant and postpartum women, decreased risk of preeclampsia, gestational hypertension, gestational diabetes, excessive weight gain, delivery complications, postpartum depression, and newborn complications. Furthermore, physical activity has no adverse effects on birth weight or increased risk of stillbirth.
Activity’s “arch enemy” is sedentary behavior.
Sedentary behavior is any period of low-energy expenditure while awake, such as sitting, reclining, or lying down. Lives are becoming increasingly sedentary through the use of motorized transport and the increased use of screens for work, education, and recreation. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the following poor health outcomes are evident:
- Only one in 4 people aged 15 years and over meet the physical activity guidelines set forth by the CDC.
- Nearly half of employed adults aged 18–64 described their day at work as “mostly sitting.”
- The percentage of men who meet physical activity guidelines decreases with age.
Globally, there are notable age and gender differences in levels of physical inactivity:
- Women are less active than men by an average of five percentage points.
- After age 60, physical inactivity levels increase in both men and women.
- 81% of adolescents (aged 11–17) are physically inactive.
- Adolescent girls are less active than adolescent boys (78% vs. 85%), not meeting World Health Organization guidelines.
Other Key Findings
- Regular physical activity provides significant physical and mental-health benefits.
- In adults, physical activity contributes to the prevention and management of non-communicable diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and diabetes, reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety, enhances brain health, and can improve overall well-being.
- In children and adolescents, physical activity promotes bone health, encourages healthy growth and development of muscle, and improves motor and cognitive development.
- 31% of adults and 80% of adolescents do not meet the recommended levels of physical activity.
- The global estimate of the cost of physical inactivity to public healthcare systems between 2020 and 2030 is about $300 billion (approximately $27 billion per year) if levels of physical inactivity are not reduced.
Looking Ahead
The global target, set by the WHO, to reduce levels of physical inactivity in adults and adolescents is a 10% relative reduction by 2025 and 15% by 2030, compared to the 2010 baseline. That seems reachable, but it will take a lot of increased awareness. My doctor handed me a list of vitamins and minerals after my last appointment. In the car, I pulled the two papers from my pocket. One included iron supplements, Omega-3, chlorophyll, vitamin B, vitamin C, and vitamin D. The second sheet simply said, in capital letters, “KEEP MOVING.”
I guess that’s the primary thrust of my mini-lecture. Find reasons to get your body in motion. It can be the simplest thing. If you’re retrieving the garbage and recycling cans from the curb, make two trips and take one can each time, instead of pulling both back at once. If you’re fetching the laundry from the basement, turn around at the bottom stair and go up and down a few times. Keep a 5- or 10-pound weight next to the couch and during the commercials squeeze off three sets of 10 reps of a favorite exercise. Use the pedometer on your cell phone to keep track of your daily steps and maintain a minimum standard. Avoid the age-old complaint about not “having time to work out,” and seek the gaps and moments in which you can make time. In doing so, you may be tacking years onto your life as your body responds to a healthy heart and outlook.
