There
you are, sitting on the couch again, watching TV instead of
exercising. You know you should get up and get to the gym,
or even just take a brisk walk around the block, but something's
stopping you. You're deep in the clutches of the evil couch
potato syndrome.
Physical inactivity (often referred to as "sedentarism")
is a major contributor to heart disease, osteoporosis, adult-onset
diabetes and cancer. If you're sedentary, you're doing too
much sitting around and not enough exercising, and that combination
may be putting you at risk.
Too many of us are doing too much sitting these days. A
recent study found that more than 79.5% of men and 87.3% of
women were "sedentary" expending less than 10%
of their daily energy in performing moderate or high-intensity
exercise. Among active men and women, two fairly basic activities
(sports and walking) were the main exercises performed.
So if you're one of those people who don't exercise enough,
take some advice from the ones who do. Moderate exercise can
be easy and fun to integrate into everyday life, and can include
activities such as biking, walking, swimming... even gardening.
Get off that couch and do something about your health. Itıs
one of the best decisions you'll ever make.
Reference:
Bernstein MS, Morabia A, Sloutskis D. Definition and prevalence
of sedentarism in an urban population. American Journal
of Public Health, June 1999: Vol. 89, No. 6, pp862-67.
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