What a sedentary lifestyle does to your body
BEING a couch potato won’t just make you gain weight, it can create long-term problems for your entire body.
In July, Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton urged Jamaicans to get moving again to curb lifestyle diseases, as the burden of chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) remains very high in the Jamaican population.
Dr Tufton stated that data from the Health and Lifestyle Survey 2010 reveals that 70 per cent of deaths in Jamaica were due to the four major NCDs — namely cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancers and chronic respiratory diseases, of which 27 per cent occurred below the age of 70 years.
“One of the most important mandates of the health ministry is to get all Jamaicans to understand that it is important to take care of themselves by engaging in a number of things such as eating right, exercising and not overindulging in any activities in order to prevent lifestyle diseases such as hypertension, diabetes and high cholesterol,” he said.
How exactly does lack of activity affect your body?
1. NCDs are caused, to a large extent, by four behavioural risk factors including tobacco use, unhealthy diet, insufficient physical activity and the harmful use of alcohol. People who sit for eight hours a day may cancel out the increased risk of death and disease by doing at least an hour of exercise per day.
2. Compared to a couch-potato existence, 10 minutes of running or 40 minutes of walking can cut the risk of diabetes and breast cancer by more than 20 per cent. For colon cancer, heart disease and stroke, the risk falls by more than a quarter, say researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics at the University of Washington in Seattle in a recent study.
3. Osteoporosis and osteoarthritis are two significant illnesses whose onset can be attributed to a lack of physical activity and exercise. Osteoarthritis occurs much more frequently among obese individuals. Exercising to avoid obesity will go a far away in helping one to avoid osteoarthritis. Osteoporosis cannot be cured, but its progression can be slowed or reversed by consistently doing moderate weight training and other weight-bearing exercises.
4. Lower back pain affects approximately four out of every five people during their adult lives, and can often escalate to chronic back pain. Crunches, sit-ups, leg lifts, and other abdominal strengthening exercises contribute to preventing back problems. Other back-strengthening exercises such as hyperextensions, regular (bent-knee) dead lifts and stiff-leg dead lifts, will assist in strengthening back and hamstring muscles. Meanwhile, consistent stretching of hamstrings, spinal extensors and hip flexors will decrease tightness in these areas and help to ward off back pain.
5. Exercise boosts your metabolism and gives you more energy as your metabolic rate goes up. If you’re not exercising enough, then you fall into a slump where your body is just using enough energy to grow and repair cells. If you exercise more it will boost your energy levels.
6. People who don’t exercise shorten their lives. If you are obese at the age of 40, which often comes with a sedentary lifestyle, you will lose about three to seven years of life expectancy.
