Physical Activity. Are You Active Enough?

Being physically active will improve your life. Seems obvious right? But are you doing it? In today’s world we are constantly sedentary and more than likely staring at a screen. Think about it, you go to work and sit at a desk looking at your computer. After work how do you decompress? Are you sitting on your couch watching a TV show? A movie? Or are you sitting at a bar having a drink? The end result is the same, with of course having a few drinks being on the worse end of the spectrum in this scenario. I cannot stress how important this is for your overall health and for your body as you age. Every single person reading this, you are not getting any younger and the older you get the more important being physically active is.

There is a term out there called “successful aging”. What this term is referring to is aging while preserving function and independence in old age. Best way to not achieve this, chronic disease. Its estimated that nearly 50% of Americans have at least one chronic disease. These are generally incurable conditions like heart disease, asthma, cancer, and diabetes. What is really sad about all this, these are all generally preventable and within your control. It really is crazy to think how many people find themselves at a doctors office being given some sort of medicine that doesn’t actually fix anything but instead just suppresses or makes their condition “manageable” when they could have or still could simply just change their lifestyle. And by the way, you will be on this medicine for life. So not only is your health & well being effected for life, so is your wallet. But good news is, physical activity is a great intervention and as long as you are still alive, there is SOMETHING you can do.

Physical activity not only reduces your overall mortality, its been found that people who have “appropriate” levels of physical activity are reported to be in better health for at least 15 years longer than someone who is inactive. The appropriate level of physical activity is considered to be 150 minutes of moderate to high physical activity per week. That is NOTHING! If you think about it, 150 minutes, 7 days a week, that’s just over 20 minutes per day. I don’t care who you are or what you do for work, you have 22 minutes in a day to do SOMETHING.

But apparently there are a lot of people who don’t. The national obesity rate in the US in 2023 sits at about 42% of adults being obese. That is a disgusting amount of overweight people. But what is in a lot of ways even more alarming is the amount of children who are obese which is around 25%. Even worse, if you are obese as a child, statistically there is a 63% chance you will be obese as an adult. Just to throw some other stats at you, if you have a parent who is obese, and you are a teenager who would qualifies as obese, there is an 80% chance you will be obese as an adult! 80%! And for those of you who want to say “Oh but its genetics”, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Yes, it can play a role but it is 100% in your control. For example, you could simply just be active instead of sitting on the couch eating chips and drinking soda. It really is that simple.

When I am saying be physically active I am not telling you go out and start running marathons. That is great obviously and bravo to anyone who does that but that really isn’t even what I am talking about. I am talking about something as simple as just go for a walk. Walking burns calories, 30 minutes a day 5 days a week can reduce your risk for heart disease by 20%. It can also lower your blood sugar. Its been found that taking just a 15 minute walk after eating breakfast, lunch or dinner will improve your blood sugar levels, even more so than walking for 45 minutes at any other point in the day. The most impactful stat though is simply walking can extend your life by nearly 20%, while walking briskly for roughly 4 miles can do so by 24%.

So join a recreational sports team, find an active hobby like walking, hiking, biking, swimming, tennis, lifting weights, quite literally anything to get your body moving. It may not seem like a big deal but by the time it is a big deal, in all likelihood it will be too late. Being physically active has a host of benefits, a lot of which I spoke to in this blog but I did not even mention the proven positive effects being physically active has on your mental health, your cognitive function, and your social engagement. But it is pretty clear to see the commonality all these benefits of have, they all lead to a better quality of life. So do yourself a favor, once you close out this page…go for a walk.