Health and Physical Activity

By Patrick Olabode
 

Patrick Olaode

Physical activity simply means movement of the body that uses energy. Walking, gardening, briskly pushing a baby stroller, climbing the stairs, playing soccer, or dancing the night away are all good examples of being active. For health benefits, physical activity should be moderate or of vigorous intensity.

Moderate physical activities include:

•                       Walking briskly (about 3½ miles per hour)

•                       Bicycling (less than 10 miles per hour)

• General gardening (raking, trimming shrubs)

• Dancing

• Golf (walking and carrying clubs)

• Water aerobics

• Canoeing

• Tennis (doubles)

Vigorous physical activities include:

• Running/jogging (5 miles per hour)

• Walking very fast (4½ miles per hour)

• Bicycling (more than 10 miles per hour)

• Heavy yard work, such as chopping wood

• Swimming (freestyle laps)

• Aerobics

• Basketball (competitive)

• Tennis (singles)

Regular physical activity can produce long term health benefits. People of all ages, shapes, sizes, and abilities can benefit from being physically active. The more physical activity one does the greater the health benefits. You may choose light, moderate or vigorous intensity activities, or a mix of both each week. This depends on the extent to which they make breathing harder and heart beat faster.

However, only moderate and vigorous intensity activities count towards meeting physical activity needs. With vigorous activities, similar health benefits can be achieved in half the time it takes with moderate ones by replacing some or all moderate activity with vigorous activity. Although movement is involved, light intensity activities do not increase heart rate, so this should not be counted towards meeting the physical activity recommendations. These activities include walking at a casual pace, such as while grocery shopping, and doing light household chores.

Being physically active can help:

• Increase your chances of living longer

• Feel better about yourself

• Decrease your chances of becoming depressed

• Sleep well at night

• Move around more easily

• Have stronger muscles and bones

• Stay at or get to a healthy weight

• Be with friends or meet new people

• Enjoy yourself and have fun

When not physically active, one is more likely to:

• Get heart disease

• Get type 2 diabetes

• Have high blood pressure

• Have high blood cholesterol

• Have a stroke

Patrick Olabode MSN, RN, CNP (patolabode@yahoo.com)