Archive for category Physical Activity

Assessment of PA in Swiss school children

The combination of accelerometers and time activity diaries provides insight into age and gender related differences in PA. This information is warranted to efficiently guide and evaluate PA promotion.

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Perceived barriers to physical activity among pregnant women

Among 1535 pregnant women participating in a survey, 85% reported an intrapersonal barrier to physical activity, of which almost two-thirds were health related. Only 2% of the women reported their main barrier to physical activity as interpersonal and 3% reported a neighborhood or environmental barrier.

Since pregnancy may trigger the development of obesity and since physical activity is recommended for healthy pregnant women, it is imperative to promote physical activity in a more relevant way.

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Physical inactivity is the biggest public health problem

Doing something is better than doing nothing, and doing more is better than doing less, at least up to a point. We need numerous changes to promote more physical activity for all, including public policies, changes in the health care system, promoting activity in educational settings and worksites, and social and physical environmental changes. We need more communities where people feel comfortable walking.

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Mediterranean Diet Plus Exercise Cuts Alzheimer’s Risk

In a 2006 study, Columbia University Medical Center researchers showed that elderly New Yorkers whose eating habits most resemble the Mediterranean diet have about a 40% lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease than do those with poor diets.

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Healthy Living Is the Best Revenge

Never smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, exercising regularly and following a healthy diet—together appear to be associated with as much as an 80 percent reduction in the risk of developing the most common and deadly chronic diseases including type 2 diabetes, myocardial infarction, stroke, and cancer.

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One in four children is not playing organised sport at school or home

Despite rising levels of obesity, 23 per cent of five to 19-year-olds in the UK do not take part in organised sport. The findings are hugely embarrassing for the UK Government, which has pledged to get children and young people doing five hours of sport a week by 2010.

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LightLane – you will love this new invention!

lightlaneBike lanes are an effective means of improving safety for cyclists. If there is no bike lane, why not bring your on?

Designers Alex Tee and Evan Gant from Massachusetts are hoping their LightLane bicycle add-on will make bicycling safer at night. One key is that the lane establishes a well-defined boundary beyond the envelope of the bicycle, providing a greater margin of safety between the car and the cycist.

This system projects a crisply defined virtual bike lane onto pavement, using a laser, providing the driver with a familiar boundary to avoid.

However, due to the high cost of installation, bike lanes are not widely available. Instead of forcing cyclists to adapt their behavior to the existing infrastructure, the bike lane should adapt to the cyclist.

Watch this video (no audio):

Visit Lightlane’s website.

Thanks to Stine Lorentzen for the tip.

Active commuting and cardiovascular disease risk

Men and women who walk or ride a bike to work appear more fit, and men are less likely to be overweight or obese and have healthier triglyceride levels, blood pressure and insulin levels, according to this new and imporant report.

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Advancing Policies to Support Healthy Eating and Active Living

Here you can find a useful Guide for Local and State Leaders Working to Create Healthy  Communities and Prevent Childhood Obesity. Today, many US communities are unhealthy. Too frequently, families lack access to full-service grocery stores that stock affordable healthy foods, and children don’t have safe places to play or even walk.  The toolkit is published by a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Policy Action Can Help
Fortunately, many of the action strategies outlined in this toolkit are inexpensive and even provide a return on the investment in the long run. With nearly one-third of American youth either obese or overweight, the stakes are too high to do nothing about the direction of our children’s health.

Download the toolkit (102 pages) here. And visit leadershipforhealthycommunities.org for links to many relevant web resources.

Legislation Includes Provisions For Healthy Lifestyle Infrastructure

Sweeping healthcare legislation in US Congress includes money for walking paths, streetlights, jungle gyms, and even farmers’ markets.

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