There’s been a lot of press coverage on the study we highlighted last week's blog about children doing less physical activity as they get older.  We now know that students’ physical fitness declines with age as well. 

The Texas Education Association recently released a report of the results from fitness testing done in Texas schools this spring.  Over 2.5 million children from grades 3 through 12 completed tests to assess physical fitness in six areas – cardiovascular endurance, body fat, abdominal strength, upper body strength, shoulder flexibility, and back strength and flexibility.  The Cooper Institute’s FITNESSGRAM fitness assessment program was used as the testing protocol.  Among third graders, 28% of boys and 32% of girls attained the “Healthy Fitness Zone” for all six tests.  For high school seniors, less than 10% of girls and boys reached the “Healthy Fitness Zone” on all of the tests.  Click here for more information on the Texas schools results. 

This report and the recent Journal of the American Medical Association study tell us that kids get less fit and less active as they get older.  And sedentary habits in childhood can lead to sedentary habits in adulthood.  There are no easy answers to solving this potentially devastating trend.  But there are groups, including The Cooper Institute, that are working hard to find the answers.  In addition to our FITNESSGRAM program, we offer ACTIVITYGRAM, software that assesses students’ physical activity status and provides a report for parents on how to improve their students’ activity level.

Another Cooper Institute youth-related activity is Our Kids’ Health®.  This initiative is aimed at reducing childhood obesity through improved physical activity and healthy eating practices.  Our Kids’ Health® will equip students, schools, and parents with information, resources, and data that will mobilize communities to take action to support and encourage physical activity and healthy eating in our youth.  Click here to learn about Our Kids' Health® and how you can make a donation to help support this important effort.

Being physically active is a key factor in maintaining calorie balance.  Right now, we are at risk for a whole generation being out of calorie balance.  This will lead to even higher levels of obesity in youth and in adults.  Stay tuned to the Stand Up & Eat web site for new resources that parents, teachers, and children can use to learn about calorie literacy.

So what do you think are ways we can keep our kids physically active and physically fit throughout their lives?

A long time ago, The American Heart Association had a great educational poster that showed a child lounging on a couch watching television.  The caption read, “Prevent couch potatoes while they are still small fries.”

The poster was prophetic.  A new study published in yesterday’s Journal of the American Medical Association definitively showed that children exercise less – a lot less – as they get older.  As 9 year olds, boys and girls in the study did moderate to vigorous physical activity about three hours a day during the week about the same amount of time on weekends.  By the time they were fifteen, they averaged only 49 minutes per day during the week and 35 minutes per day on the weekend.  This is well below the current recommendation for children of 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity per day.  Girls experienced the biggest drop in physical activity time.  Of course, low levels of physical activity put children – and adults – at risk for becoming overweight and developing chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.

So how do we prevent our “small fries” from being couch potatoes and now in the computer age, “mouse potatoes?”  This study did not determine the reasons for the decline.  But likely, for these children and in the population at large, there are fewer opportunities to be active during the day and after school.  Consider that recess and physical education has diminished if not gone away in most schools.  Some neighborhoods don’t have sidewalks or parks that make it easy for kids to play safely.  And even if they could, many children are not allowed to play outside until their parents or caregiver gets home.  Parents and caregivers need to be made aware of the importance of physical activity in their children’s lives.

The Stand Up & Eat web site is committed to helping people of all ages be active and eat healthier diets.  As the site grows, you will find more tools and resources that you can use to activate yourself, your children, and your community. 

Use the comment section below to let us and others know how you are practicing or promoting active living and healthy eating.

After going for a walk or bike ride, have you ever wondered how many calories you burned?  Or how far you went? 

MapMyFitness, LLC offers a suite of web sites that help you measure the distance and calories burned of your walks, runs, hikes and bike rides.  You simply use your mouse to trace your walking, running or biking route on a map view (looks like a MapQuest-type map).  You can then type the time it took you to do the route into the “Workout Calculator” feature.  Click on “Calculate My Stats” and it will show you the distance and calories burned!  Just remember, the calories given will be an estimate because the system can’t take into consideration wind speed or direction, surface type, or changes in elevation.

You can also save your favorite routes and even share your routes with others.  In fact, one of the best features of the MapMy… sites is that you can learn about local routes from other users.  So if you are traveling to Washington, DC, you can view routes that the locals like.  (There are currently 504 walks listed for the DC area!) You can even save your routes to a GPS device.

There are many other neat features of the site such as a training log, newslestter, user stories and photos, a searchable listing of physical activity events, and much more.  Check out MapMyWalk.com and let us know what you think of this handy web site.

We established in earlier blogs that commuting by bicycle is energy and time efficient. 

But just how safe is it?

According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Association (NHTSA), bicyclist deaths accounted for two percent of all traffic fatalities and traffic injuries in 2006. That translates to 773 deaths and 44,000 people injured that year. Clearly, bicycle riding has some risk. But so does being sedentary.

You can maximize your calorie burning and health benefits by regularly using your bike to get to work. Learn how to minimize your injury risks at www.bicyclinginfo.org. Also, www.commutebybike.com offers a wealth of information including how to get started (“Commuting 101”), articles, bike reviews, and a really cool gas savings calculator.

Another great resource is a bikeability checklist from NHTSA.  You rate your local area on things like intersections, surfaces, and driver behavior.  If you end up with a low bikeability score, you can move to one of these top 10 bikeable cities.  Or you can follow the recommendations given on the checklist for actions you and others can take to advocate for improving the bikeability in your community. 

The picture at the top of this blog at the central train station in Amsterdam.  Obviously the Dutch are big into bike commuting.  Is your local area bike commuter friendly?

In an earlier blog posting, we described the energy efficiency of biking instead of driving a car.  But what about time efficiency?  Here’s a fun video clip that pits a bike, a car, and mass transit against each other in a New York City commute.   Guess who gets to the destination first? 

In addition to saving time and the environment, commuting by bike helps the body burn more calories which is essential for effective weight management.  Of course, you know that there a gazillions health benefits associated with regular exercise and fitness. 

Is your local area fit for bike commuting?  Check back for the next blog entry to see how to make bicycle commuting easy and safe in your community.

People are getting green – with envy over their friends’ and neighbors’ environment-friendly cars. Now with gas prices going through the sunroof, they are even more envious of the energy-efficiency feature of such cars. 

But before you turn green with envy – or from nausea over gas prices – consider this. You and your legs are the most energy efficient mode of transportation there is. According to Marcia Lowe in her book, “The Bicycle:  Vehicle for a Small Planet,” published by the Worldwatch Institute in 1989, bicycling burns 35 calories per person mile traveled. Walking – 100 calories per person per mile. But hop in your car and drive a mile and your car will burn over 1,800 calories – and add pollution to boot. 

Now consider this. The gas you use for your car is non-renewable. It comes out of the ground, is refined, put in the car, burned, and it's gone. The fuel your body uses is renewable.  Food comes from the earth, is processed in some cases (think potato chips versus potatoes), is eaten, and burned.  But our food fuel can be replanted and regrown year after year.

Remember, too, that using “leg power” is not only good for the earth, it is good for your health.  Regular physical activity reduces risk for many chronic ailments including heart disease, certain cancers, diabetes, and, of course, obesity.

With global warming and the growing global obesity epidemic, perhaps Dr. Lowe should update her book title to “The Bicycle: Vehicle for a Fat Planet.”

What are ways you can use “leg power” instead of your auto?

Click on the picture above to watch a great clip of Snowball dancing to the Back Street Boys.

Now if you just sat there in your chair watching Snowball do his thing, you burned about two (2) calories. If you stood up and followed Snowball's every move, you danced off about 8 calories!

So every time you need a break at work, have Snowball put you through your paces. Five times a day = lots of belly laughs and 40 extra calories burned.  Do that every work day and you will have burned over 200 calories in a week.  That's about equal to a 16-ounce cherry soda or 2.5 cups of fresh cherries.

For ideas of ways to work out at work (without breaking a sweat), check out this article.   

Learn more about Snowball's adventures (he was on the David Letterman show!) at the Bird Lovers Only Rescue blog site.

Just standing may be an important component of total daily calories burned. A recent study showed that compared to lean women, obese women sat more and stood less.  They also spent half as much time moving around as the lean women. Still, the researchers calculated that if the obese women sat less, stood more, and doubled their weekly activity time, they could burn about 315 more calories a day.

How can this be? One answer is obvious. Your body burns more calories standing than sitting. One-third more to be exact. That’s because the large muscles in your legs and back are fighting gravity to keep you standing erect.

Less obvious but implied by this study, is that people who stood more also moved more. Perhaps the saying, “You have to walk before you run” should be adapted to, “You have to stand before you walk.”

A third intriguing explanation has to do with fat-burning enzymes that naturally occur in your body. According to new research from the University of Missouri-Columbia, when you sit, these enzymes seem to shut off. This prevents stored fat from being put into the blood stream to be used as an energy source.  The research also seems to indicate that when you are seated, fat that is already in the blood stream prefers to be stored in the fat tissue instead of being burned by muscle.

While this latter explanation is intriguing, more research is needed. Also, you shouldn’t trade in your long walks for standing all day. If you are already physically active, stay active and when you are not exercising, sit less. If you are not active, stand up more. Here are ideas for making a stand for good health:

1. When the phone rings, stand up for the duration of the call.
2. You know those “standing” meetings that occur regularly on your calendar? Make them truly standing by not sitting! Send this blog post to your friends or work colleagues – perhaps they will stand with you!Stand in the stands.
3. Who says you have to sit to watch your child’s soccer game?
   

What ideas do you have for standing more? Add your thoughts in the comments section below.

This is one of those “duh” stories.  

In a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers reviewed the results of 26 studies in which pedometers or step counters were used. They found that using step counters was strongly associated with increases in physical activity. That is, people who used step counters increased their activity by over 2,000 steps compared to their own baseline level or compared to people who did not wear a step counter. In addition, using step counters was associated with reductions in body mass index (BMI), an indicator of body fatness, and blood pressure.

It's a “duh” story because if you move more, you burn more calories. You burn more calories, you reduce your weight. What is interesting is that this study showed that a relatively simple, inexpensive tool can help people move more — and weigh less.

We at The Cooper Institute have known about the value of step counters for a long time. Over 15 years ago, we conducted one of the first studies in which step counters were used to help people set goals and track their physical activity. We have since used step counters in many other studies and educational programs. Still, it is good to have a definitive paper in a prestigious journal that goes to thousands of physicians and other health professionals. We hope that more clinicians will recommend step counters to their patients.

If you don’t have a step counter, get one. If you do have one, here are ways to have fun with it.

Fun with Step Counters

Step Around Your Block

1. Guess how many steps it is from your home to the end of your block.
2. Check your step counter before and after you walk the distance. How close was your guess?
3. Try it again. How many steps does it take to go around your whole block?

 Take a Cue for Physical Activity

1. Decide how many steps you want to have on your step counter by lunch time.
2. Check your counter at noon. If you haven’t reached your goal, take time during your lunch break to add some steps.
3. Set another goal for five o’clock. If you haven’t reached your five o’clock goal, the step counter will cue you to get moving!

One Step Counter, Two Friends

1. Ask a friend to join you. Walk for five minutes. Guess the number of steps you walked.  Have your buddy guess, also. Check the step counter. Whoever comes closest to the actual number without going over gets to wear the step counter for the next 10 minutes.
2. Guess the number of steps on the counter after 10 minutes. Continue on the rest of your walk. Make up different time intervals (three minutes, 11 minutes, etc.) for counting steps.  Each time, the person who comes closest wins the right to wear the step counter.
3. At the end of your walk, who wore the step counter the most times?

Have you ever used a step counter?  If so, how did it help you?