CHAPTER TWENTY
Sedentary Activities
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The driving force behind our sluggish lifestyle is the automobile, public transportation, entertainment, and other laborsaving inventions. These inventions that come with modernization are in the process of systematically eliminating exercise from our daily lives. This “lack of activity” is making us a sedentary society.
The two main activities that correlate closely with a sedentary lifestyle are television viewing and automobile travel. These activities have taken away our daily walking routines. Most people go from home to work by automobile. They work in an office building or factory that has a parking lot right outside the door. They use elevators and escalators instead of stairs.
===========================================
To make matters worse, most people go to work at sedentary jobs, and 24 percent of Americans report that they do no exercise at all. After holding down sedentary jobs, which require them to sit behind a desk up to ten hours a day, they go home and spend countless hours watching television. This means they spend virtually no time engaged in physical activity.
It is not just the adults who are falling in to this trap. Children who watch television four or more hours a day are four times more likely to be overweight than those who watch less than two hours a day. In today’s society, children are playing computer games, surfing the Internet, and ordering pizza instead of playing basketball, running, or playing soccer. All of their sedentary activities are contributing to a huge surge in obesity.
===========================================
A sedentary lifestyle can be a family affair especially when both parent work and the children are not involved in sports or other outdoor activities. Sedentary families usually spend a great deal of their quality time together in restaurants or other group eating activities. The food they choose usually adds to the problem because they buy the food they like rather than making healthy choices. This results in an inadequate diet, which is rich in sugar and fat.
In general, inactive children also consume large quantities of junk food. Consuming junk food and watching television for three or more hours of a day is one of the reasons there are so many overweight children in the United States. This is part of a typical sedentary lifestyle for both children and adults.
===========================================
Parents purchase the latest computers, the best TV sets, video games, and whatever else their children need or want. All of these things contribute to and encourage a sedentary lifestyle. Parents who pamper their children only want the best for them, but they could be setting the child up for heart failure. Now, because of obesity, more young adults are getting heart disease and related problems.
Parents generally do not become concerned about a child’s health and fitness until it is too late. Once the child has been conditioned and socialized into a sedentary lifestyle it becomes a habit. That is when it is the most difficult to get the situation turned around. Old habits are hard to break because by the time children develop a life of leisure, they are overweight and out of shape.
===========================================
However, children can break their unhealthy habits and learn to make better food choices, but it takes time and education. Overweight children are generally not motivated to exercise, do housework, or go walking on their own. They simply do not want to give up the things they like to do. They become lazy and they like sitting around eating junk food all day long. That is the opinion of some researchers.
Junk food is an enemy for growing children. It is found within the home, in restaurants, and in schools. At home they eat processed foods, in restaurants they eat greasy, unbalanced meals, and in school they get their treats from snack bars and vending machines.
===========================================
Junk food is also a convenient comfort food. When people become anxious, lonely, angry, or suffer from low self esteem, they console themselves with chocolate, soda, ice cream, cookies, and other delicious treats, which are usually high in fat, sugar, and processed carbohydrates.
It is not just the junk food. It’s the main ingredients, sugar and fat, which keeps adding on the pounds. The average American diet now includes twenty teaspoons of added sugar a day. Much of this sugar is consumed in soft drinks, fruit juice, and other prepared foods. This, along with modernization, makes gaining weight easy. Caloric intake has gone up drastically over the past twenty years. In the United States, it has risen nearly 10 percent for men and 7 percent for women, while exercise activity continues to decline.
===========================================
All of this makes it difficult to start doing the things we need to do to lose weight and stay healthy. It is not easy to just wake up one morning and start exercising and eating right. There are many imagined and real barriers that one must overcome before starting and continuing an effective diet/weight loss program.
Technology is one of the real barriers contributing to our sedentary lifestyle. We are not about to give up our automatic can openers, automatic garage door openers, remote controls, microwave ovens, elevators, or escalators. As more of these modern conveniences come into our lives, our active lifestyle deteriorates. Technology comes in and deletes the movement from our lives.
===========================================
Besides these obvious challenges to overcoming a sedentary lifestyle, plus-sized people have other obstacles in their way. Exercise itself is an obstacle for overweight people because they have to deal with the pain, stiffness, fatigue, and the fear of injury that come with exercise. All of this also makes it difficult for them to gain the level of fitness that is necessary to burn excess body fat.
We can break our sedentary habits, but it will take education, time, patience, and effort. In the meantime our appetite for chips, cookies, chocolates, and other high calorie snacks continues to add hundreds of extra empty calories to our diet each day.
===========================================
Another barrier to exercise may be the gym itself. A gymnasium can be a scary place for some people who are not comfortable participating in exercise activities with others. Crowded gyms can intimidate almost anyone especially overweight newcomers. This makes it difficult for a person to get started on a regular exercise program. Can you imagine walking into a room full of people for the first time? This can be a humiliating experience, especially when most of the people there are physically fit, and you are the most overweight one of all.
Injury is another barrier that one must overcome. Injury is not only detrimental to the individual; it can threaten the entire exercise program. People who injure themselves while exercising usually stop the program. However, older overweight people are the ones who are more likely to injure themselves while exercising because of the added stress. Naturally, if you injure yourself, you will not feel like exercising.
===========================================
Over a period of time, a sedentary lifestyle will be harmful regardless of the person’s diet. You can reverse the damage done by years of inactivity by starting and sticking with a good, regular exercise program. Even older people can start an exercise program and see amazing results within a few weeks. The common approach to weight loss is to simply go on a diet in an attempt to lose weight. Unfortunately, this approach does not work by itself. You will need an education in nutrition and exercise to be successful.
The two main activities that correlate closely with a sedentary lifestyle are television viewing and automobile travel. These activities have taken away our daily walking routines. Most people go from home to work by automobile. They work in an office building or factory that has a parking lot right outside the door. They use elevators and escalators instead of stairs.
===========================================
To make matters worse, most people go to work at sedentary jobs, and 24 percent of Americans report that they do no exercise at all. After holding down sedentary jobs, which require them to sit behind a desk up to ten hours a day, they go home and spend countless hours watching television. This means they spend virtually no time engaged in physical activity.
It is not just the adults who are falling in to this trap. Children who watch television four or more hours a day are four times more likely to be overweight than those who watch less than two hours a day. In today’s society, children are playing computer games, surfing the Internet, and ordering pizza instead of playing basketball, running, or playing soccer. All of their sedentary activities are contributing to a huge surge in obesity.
===========================================
A sedentary lifestyle can be a family affair especially when both parent work and the children are not involved in sports or other outdoor activities. Sedentary families usually spend a great deal of their quality time together in restaurants or other group eating activities. The food they choose usually adds to the problem because they buy the food they like rather than making healthy choices. This results in an inadequate diet, which is rich in sugar and fat.
In general, inactive children also consume large quantities of junk food. Consuming junk food and watching television for three or more hours of a day is one of the reasons there are so many overweight children in the United States. This is part of a typical sedentary lifestyle for both children and adults.
===========================================
Parents purchase the latest computers, the best TV sets, video games, and whatever else their children need or want. All of these things contribute to and encourage a sedentary lifestyle. Parents who pamper their children only want the best for them, but they could be setting the child up for heart failure. Now, because of obesity, more young adults are getting heart disease and related problems.
Parents generally do not become concerned about a child’s health and fitness until it is too late. Once the child has been conditioned and socialized into a sedentary lifestyle it becomes a habit. That is when it is the most difficult to get the situation turned around. Old habits are hard to break because by the time children develop a life of leisure, they are overweight and out of shape.
===========================================
However, children can break their unhealthy habits and learn to make better food choices, but it takes time and education. Overweight children are generally not motivated to exercise, do housework, or go walking on their own. They simply do not want to give up the things they like to do. They become lazy and they like sitting around eating junk food all day long. That is the opinion of some researchers.
Junk food is an enemy for growing children. It is found within the home, in restaurants, and in schools. At home they eat processed foods, in restaurants they eat greasy, unbalanced meals, and in school they get their treats from snack bars and vending machines.
===========================================
Junk food is also a convenient comfort food. When people become anxious, lonely, angry, or suffer from low self esteem, they console themselves with chocolate, soda, ice cream, cookies, and other delicious treats, which are usually high in fat, sugar, and processed carbohydrates.
It is not just the junk food. It’s the main ingredients, sugar and fat, which keeps adding on the pounds. The average American diet now includes twenty teaspoons of added sugar a day. Much of this sugar is consumed in soft drinks, fruit juice, and other prepared foods. This, along with modernization, makes gaining weight easy. Caloric intake has gone up drastically over the past twenty years. In the United States, it has risen nearly 10 percent for men and 7 percent for women, while exercise activity continues to decline.
===========================================
All of this makes it difficult to start doing the things we need to do to lose weight and stay healthy. It is not easy to just wake up one morning and start exercising and eating right. There are many imagined and real barriers that one must overcome before starting and continuing an effective diet/weight loss program.
Technology is one of the real barriers contributing to our sedentary lifestyle. We are not about to give up our automatic can openers, automatic garage door openers, remote controls, microwave ovens, elevators, or escalators. As more of these modern conveniences come into our lives, our active lifestyle deteriorates. Technology comes in and deletes the movement from our lives.
===========================================
Besides these obvious challenges to overcoming a sedentary lifestyle, plus-sized people have other obstacles in their way. Exercise itself is an obstacle for overweight people because they have to deal with the pain, stiffness, fatigue, and the fear of injury that come with exercise. All of this also makes it difficult for them to gain the level of fitness that is necessary to burn excess body fat.
We can break our sedentary habits, but it will take education, time, patience, and effort. In the meantime our appetite for chips, cookies, chocolates, and other high calorie snacks continues to add hundreds of extra empty calories to our diet each day.
===========================================
Another barrier to exercise may be the gym itself. A gymnasium can be a scary place for some people who are not comfortable participating in exercise activities with others. Crowded gyms can intimidate almost anyone especially overweight newcomers. This makes it difficult for a person to get started on a regular exercise program. Can you imagine walking into a room full of people for the first time? This can be a humiliating experience, especially when most of the people there are physically fit, and you are the most overweight one of all.
Injury is another barrier that one must overcome. Injury is not only detrimental to the individual; it can threaten the entire exercise program. People who injure themselves while exercising usually stop the program. However, older overweight people are the ones who are more likely to injure themselves while exercising because of the added stress. Naturally, if you injure yourself, you will not feel like exercising.
===========================================
Over a period of time, a sedentary lifestyle will be harmful regardless of the person’s diet. You can reverse the damage done by years of inactivity by starting and sticking with a good, regular exercise program. Even older people can start an exercise program and see amazing results within a few weeks. The common approach to weight loss is to simply go on a diet in an attempt to lose weight. Unfortunately, this approach does not work by itself. You will need an education in nutrition and exercise to be successful.
===========================================
Sedentary Avoidance Activities
===========================================
Activity can play an important role in helping people both lose weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Researchers are finding that exercise need not be strenuous for the person to have an active lifestyle. All you need to do is avoid sedentary activities. By avoiding sedentary activities, you become active. This means that you can lose weight just by doing housework, gardening, and fun activities such as window-shopping. Any type of activity can help with weight management.
People can avoid a sedentary lifestyle by finding other activities to take the place of the ones that require sitting. Following are a few ways to avoid inactivity without expending a lot of energy or doing vigorous exercise:
===========================================
Sedentary avoidance activities:
• Park the car at the far end of the parking lot
• Do yard work such as raking leaves and mowing the lawn
• Do housework such as cleaning, vacuuming, dusting, and washing dishes
• Use stairs and walk whenever possible rather than using elevators, escalators, and moving walkways
• Walk during lunch breaks
• Use fewer laborsaving devices such as remote controls
• Play with your children or grandchildren
• Take a walk before breakfast or after lunch and dinner
• Walk or ride a bicycle to the corner store instead of driving
• When walking, pick up the pace a little each day
• When watching television, stand and stretch during commercials or ride a stationary bike
• When you want something, get up and get it yourself
• Walk around while talking on the telephone
• Stretch to reach items in high places and squat for items in low places
• Do not use the drive-through window at fast food restaurants (don’t eat fast food)
• Do not take short cuts. Go the long way around when walking or shopping
===========================================
Avoiding sedentary activity can be the critical first step for overweight people. From there they can move on to more serious exercises. This is especially true for those who cannot do a traditional exercise program. It is also a good start for those who simply do not like to exercise.
===========================================Sedentary Avoidance Activities
===========================================
Activity can play an important role in helping people both lose weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Researchers are finding that exercise need not be strenuous for the person to have an active lifestyle. All you need to do is avoid sedentary activities. By avoiding sedentary activities, you become active. This means that you can lose weight just by doing housework, gardening, and fun activities such as window-shopping. Any type of activity can help with weight management.
People can avoid a sedentary lifestyle by finding other activities to take the place of the ones that require sitting. Following are a few ways to avoid inactivity without expending a lot of energy or doing vigorous exercise:
===========================================
Sedentary avoidance activities:
• Park the car at the far end of the parking lot
• Do yard work such as raking leaves and mowing the lawn
• Do housework such as cleaning, vacuuming, dusting, and washing dishes
• Use stairs and walk whenever possible rather than using elevators, escalators, and moving walkways
• Walk during lunch breaks
• Use fewer laborsaving devices such as remote controls
• Play with your children or grandchildren
• Take a walk before breakfast or after lunch and dinner
• Walk or ride a bicycle to the corner store instead of driving
• When walking, pick up the pace a little each day
• When watching television, stand and stretch during commercials or ride a stationary bike
• When you want something, get up and get it yourself
• Walk around while talking on the telephone
• Stretch to reach items in high places and squat for items in low places
• Do not use the drive-through window at fast food restaurants (don’t eat fast food)
• Do not take short cuts. Go the long way around when walking or shopping
===========================================
Avoiding sedentary activity can be the critical first step for overweight people. From there they can move on to more serious exercises. This is especially true for those who cannot do a traditional exercise program. It is also a good start for those who simply do not like to exercise.