<< Back 11/27/02 Get up and move, say health educators By David Claxton The March 2002 New England Journal of Medicine reported that poor physical fitness is a better predictor of death than a number of other widely feared factors, including smoking, hypertension and heart disease. President Bush’s Healthier U.S. Initiative is based on the premise that increasing personal fitness and becoming healthier is critical to achieving a better and longer life. Unfortunately, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, North Carolina ranks 38th in the nation for adult participation in physical activity. In November 2000, the secretary of health and human services and the secretary of education sent a report to President Clinton that stated our nation’s young people were inactive, unfit, and increasingly obese. A PRNewswire report from January of this year reported that, for the first time in a century, today’s children will have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. Inactivity, coupled with high-calorie diets, is leading to the fattening of our nation’s kids. Dr. William Klish, head of the department of medicine and chief of gastroenterology and nutritional service at Texas Children’s Hospital, said, “Type 2 diabetes was once considered an adult disease; however, because more kids are overweight, the incidence of the disease has increased dramatically in children and adolescents.” Unfortunately, North Carolina youth are four times more likely to be obese than other kids. Obesity is often related to inadequate physical activity. It’s clear that we are not moving enough. Fortunately, a group of North Carolinians is doing all it can to help reverse this situation. The North Carolina Alliance of Athletics, Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (NCAAHPERD) is made up of some 2,000 teachers and other allied professionals who are bound by a common mission statement: To provide advocacy, professional development, and unity for health, physical education, recreation, dance, and athletics professionals and students in order to enhance and promote the health of North Carolinians. We have conceived a plan to focus the state’s attention on the need for physical activity, called “North Carolina Moving Together.” We are encouraging everyone across the state to move, or exercise, simultaneously on Dec. 6 from 10 until 11 a.m. We ask school teachers to join their students in a walk or engage them in some form of physical activity. We ask that principals allow the school’s physical education teacher to organize a school-wide jump rope session or other form of mass physical activity. We encourage employers to give their workers a chance to walk, stretch, dance, do tai’ chi or engage in some other form of physical activity on that Friday morning. The idea is for everyone across the state to be physically active for at least a few minutes between 10 and 11 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 6. Research indicates that one need not run three miles at an eight-minute pace or carry a backpack for 10 miles to receive health benefits from exercise. Thirty minutes a day of sustained activity (and this can be broken into three 10-minute segments) is sufficient. We know that one session of physical activity is not enough to elicit a change in anyone’s health. But we hope one session on Friday, Dec. 6, can bring attention to the benefit of physical activity in everyone’s life. A March article in the Washington Post states that “getting more exercise is among the most beneficial actions people, especially sedentary ones, can take to decrease their risk of death.” We hope all North Carolinians will join us on Dec. 6 to get “North Carolina Moving Together.” David Claxton, professor and head of the department of Health and Human performance at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, is president of the North Carolina Alliance for Athletics, Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. He holds the doctor of education degree in physical education from Arizona State University.