Back in February the results of a study were released concerning obesity and the amount of exercise Americans get each year. The results were not good, yet not very surprising. The main premise, that you may have seen on the news, is that the average obese woman performs just one hour of vigorous exercise per year. The average obese male doesn’t do much better. He only gets 3.6 hours each year. How does this affect you? Quite a bit actually.
Obesity
First, there must be a clarification between overweight and obese. Overweight is anything above your ideal weight range (the body mass index chart is a rough guide, but every person is different). Obesity begins when you hit 30 or more on the BMI chart. This means for a female that is 5 feet 4 inches tall, she must be 175 pounds or more to be in the obese stage.
One Hour of Exercise
While I don’t find it shocking that there are a lot of obese people in the US, I do find it shocking the lack of exercise they get. One hour per year is the average. This means that half of the obese women get less, and half get more than that. The half that gets less are, as the article states, basically moving from one chair to the next. Now I don’t want to get off on a tangent on how it isn’t that hard to get some exercise, but an hour per day is feasible for most, an hour per week for everyone, an hour per year is pure laziness (barring any physical conditions preventing exercise of course).
How it Affects You
Some people may argue that it is their life choice to be unhealthy. And that’s true, nobody can force them to eat better and exercise more. However, it costs everyone in the long run.
Studies have shown over and over that being obese raises risks of heart disease, diabetes, and a whole host of other medical disorders. Those who are obese will obviously be enlisting the help of hospitals more than those who are fit and healthy. This ends up causing insurance companies to pay out more, for which they raise premiums to offset those losses. Socialized healthcare is affected the same way, but the “premiums” are paid through taxes.
Healthcare costs are the biggest factors, but there are other consequences. Heavier people tend to use their vehicles more often, and they get worse gas mileage. They eat more, and consume more products overall. Basic supply and demand economics indicates that as demand goes up, so does the price. So the more that people are consuming, the more everyone has to pay.
Wrapping it Up
Now I am not meaning to get after overweight and obese people. Very often there are situations that pile up and people end up obese. But that does not mean it is a free pass to stay obese. We all know we should eat healthy, and we should exercise more, but then we don’t do it. So how does human behavior change? How do we move from one hour per year to one hour per day? The best way is to start small with conscious efforts. Make the decision to do 10 minutes of minor exercise (not even the vigorous exercise) each day for the next 6 days. That means you walk around the block just once each evening after dinner and take Sunday off. Then make the conscious decision to walk around the block twice each night. Work your way up so that by this time next year, you are doing at least a few hours per week of vigorous exercise, helping to save you money and potentially your life.
How much exercise do you get? How do you battle a sedentary lifestyle?
One hour PER YEAR?! That’s crazy. I feel gross if I spend a day doing nothing. I really wish there were more financial incentives for being healthy. (It would certainly help me out)
I really do try to exercise at least five times a week. Sitting whole day in front of my laptop makes me really sick, that’s why I wake up at 5:00 A.M to go jogging first before started to work.
I do one hour of exercise five to six times per week. It makes me feel better, but I can’t say I’ve lost any weight.
Something that I have always thought a very real possibility: create a gym that all the machines generate electricity and the memberships are free. Then, as people use the equipment they not only create enough electricity to power the gym, but enough to sell back to the grid. I have a feeling the amount generated would provide more income for the gym than if they sold memberships.
Of course the startup costs would be large, and it would make too much sense to do something as environmentally friendly as that.
It isn’t just obese people who don’t exercise. I work with a skinny woman who abhors exercise. I doubt if she exercises even an hour a year. Her diet is lousy and she takes a handful of pills everyday. Her doctor has ordered her to exercise 30 minutes every day, but so far I haven’t seen or heard her mention anything more about it. She’s not the only one – many of the men never exercise either. They are various sizes and shapes and most suffer from diabetes, gout, high cholesterol and high blood pressure too. Can you imagine the loss of productivity from all these unhealthy workers.