After gorging on your food of choice during the holidays, you might feel a little out of whack. Your waistline might be a bit ugly.
The national statistics on health, fitness and obesity are even more unsightly.
According to The President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:
More than 108 million adults are either obese or overweight. That means roughly three out of every five Americans carry an unhealthy amount of excess weight.
More than 10 percent of children between 2 and 5 are overweight, twice as many since 1980.
Thirty-seven percent of adults report they are not physically active, and only three in 10 adults get the recommended amount of physical activity.
The aftermath of these trends and habits could be deadly.
Physically inactive people are twice as likely to develop coronary heart disease as regularly active people, the President’s Council notes. And in addition to increased chances of heart disease, overweight and obese people are at a higher risk for high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, respiratory problems and some cancers.
The good news, though, is that it might not take a total lifestyle overhaul to get back on the right track. Adults need only 30 minutes of physical activity at least five days a week to be healthy (children and teens need 60 minutes a day), according to the President’s Council.
So if it doesn’t take much effort, why are so many people reluctant to even add a minimum amount of exercise to their routines?
“I think just lack of motivation and sticking to it,” said Tammy Greear, one of the owners of Kingston’s NutriFitness, which runs a Nutrition and Exercise Boot Camp. “They get frustrated. What happens is people want a quick fix. We’re here to tell you that’s not the way it goes. We’re not into a bunch of supplements; we’re not into a bunch of diets and bars and stuff like that. You can eat a lot of the right foods. It’s what you eat and portion control.”
Avoid the quick fix
Former quick-fix dieters make up a sizable slice of the facility’s customers, Greear said.
“I’d say a majority of our clients have done pretty much every diet under the sun,” she said.
The Synergy Institute, an organization that, according to its Web site, is “committed to providing the best education and training in the field of personal growth and development” also provides some figures that help show how and why so many of us are out of shape:
Thirty-nine percent of Americans eat lunch while they are working.
Fifteen percent of Americans do not eat lunch at all during work days.
Fifty-three percent of working Americans regularly eat fast food.
The institute does say that 59 percent of Americans want to change their diets for the better, and 78 percent list getting in shape as a goal, but it’s hard to discern the seriousness of those responses considering the same group of numbers has 51 percent of Americans saying they are in “excellent health.”
Weight training, swimming laps at the local YMCA, running, jogging and simply walking or exercising in and around the home are all steps in the right direction.
The NutriFitness Boot Camp forces those looking to get into shape to stick to a routine, not only with their fitness, but also their eating habits. The program consists of one-hour sessions held anywhere from two or three days a week to five nights a week for the more advanced, Greear said.
“We incorporate strength training as well as cardio; it’s a different workout every night,” she said. “It’s really well-rounded. We also discuss proper nutrition.”
The different sessions include body-resistance exercises, modified lunges, squats and pushups and dumbbell work.
The boot camp — which also offers free trial sessions on Saturdays — is the first of its kind in the area, said Greear, who owns NutriFitness, which opened about two years ago, with Georgette Pann. She said it’s a popular trend on the West Coast, as well as in New York and Philadelphia.
Use it or lose it
Getting in shape is not only about forming new habits, but also putting to rest old, dangerous ones. Even for those that do work out, maintaining elements of a sedentary lifestyle — characterized by sitting or remaining inactive for most of the day (for example, in an office), without any (or little) exercise — can be very dangerous.
A report released in 2002 by the Department of Health and Human Services said that 300,000 people die each year from diseases and health conditions related to a sedentary lifestyle and poor eating habits — nearly as many as those who die from smoking. The President’s Council, meanwhile, says that 25 percent of U.S. children spend four or more hours a day watching TV.
And while the image of the fat, lazy American is a strong, prevalent stereotype, the problem is not strictly stateside.
A 2007 project done by Ghent University in Belgium studied nearly 1,000 individuals without heart disease or diabetes, asking them to report their leisure time, physical activity and TV/computer activities. The researchers found that even in those who exercised regularly, the more time they spent in front of the TV or computer, the higher their risk of developing metabolic syndrome, which the Mayo Clinic’s Web site defines as “a cluster of conditions that occur together, increasing your risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.” The risk was lower in people who carried out moderate to vigorous physical activity.
The study suggests that efforts to reduce sedentary behavior, as well as increasing moderate to vigorous physical activity, should be encouraged, as both can reduce metabolic syndrome risk and may have additive effects.
According to an article on NewsTarget.com, an online magazine covering health and nutrition, a 2004 study done by the University of Hong Kong looked at the level of physical activity in people who died and were able to correlate their level of physical activity with their risk of dying. The results: 20 percent of all deaths of people 35 and older were attributed to a lack of physical activity. The risk of dying from cancer increased 45 percent for men and 28 percent for women due to lack of physical activity. The risk of dying from respiratory ailments was an alarming 92 percent higher for men and 75 percent higher for women. The risk of dying from heart disease was 52 percent higher for men and 28 percent higher for women, all due to a lack of physical activity.
One trap that some people might fall into is assuming they are healthy and in shape because they are not overweight.
“We call them the skinny fat people,” Greear said. “It doesn’t matter the size of the person. Whether they are 20 or 30 pounds overweight or very thin, you still need strength training, you still need cardio and you still need to eat healthy.”
With the annual onslaught of New Year’s resolutions and excess holiday baggage, gyms of all sorts see spike in attendance this time of year.
Sticking with it, however, is just as important as the original motivation to get fit.
“I would say when they first come in, they want to lose the gut,” said Greear. “After a few weeks, they’re really feeling good now and say they want to continue feeling good.”
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Roughly three out of every five Americans carry an
unhealthy amount of
excess weight.