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Despite the Proven Benefits of Walking, the Nation Remains Unmoved. It's
Time to Step Up
By Suz Redfearn, The Washington Post October
1, 2002 If a pill could significantly lower the risk of heart attack, diabetes, stroke, osteoporosis and breast and colon cancer while reducing weight, cholesterol levels, constipation, depression and impotence and also increase muscle mass, flatten the belly and reshape the thighs even as it reduced the risk of age-related dementia and made you better-looking -- and had no negative side effects -- there would be panic in the streets. The American economy would tip into chaos. The military would have to be called in to secure supplies of the medication. Luckily, there is no such pill. But a large and growing body of credible research demonstrates that taking a good walk most days of the week can deliver all of the health benefits cited above and more (although we admit the "better-looking" part is harder to prove). Yes, walking. You know: one foot in front of the other, repeat, rinse, repeat. A mode of exercise formerly considered the domain of the elderly, the infirm and others incapable of or unwilling to do anything more brow-dampening. What's difficult to figure is why so many people -- including several of the individuals who have labored to produce this special issue of the Health section (!) -- do not bother to do it. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), somewhere near 75 percent of the U.S. population fails to get 30 minutes of daily exercise, whether that's walking or some more strenuous form of sport or recreation. Approximately one-third live a life offically defined as sedentary. Worse is the recent news that 30 minutes a day may not be enough. Last month, the National Academy of Sciences upped the ante, telling Americans to aim for 60 minutes of moderately intense activity per day. The CDC estimates that only 3 percent of Americans exercise 60 minutes a day. Why we're not out there walking is a mystery. It is, after all, virtually free, safe, pleasant, easy to do and hard to get wrong. It requires no special equipment except (maybe) a pair of shoes. So why are we Americans avoiding it (and other less popular forms of moderate physical exercise) to the point that we're creating an epidemic of obesity and scary upticks in the many diseases and conditions associated with it? Could it be that we've filled our lives so full of work and other obligations that we have no energy left for the one thing most likely to keep us strong and healthy for the daily battle? (Sure.) Can it be that our communities and cities have been engineered in ways that discourage or punish those who try to walk? (Yup, that too.) Can it be that nobody's figured out how to make much money from other people's walking habits, so there's no great commercial force urging us to walk, nothing comparable to the marketing efforts trying to get us to drink sodas, order pizzas and buy new cars? (We think so.) And can it be that some people just haven't had a recent reminder about all the good things walking can do, haven't heard some expert opinions on how to go about it and haven't checked out all the resources they can use to begin walking to improve their health? (We hope so, because that's what we're providing in the Health section this week.) How
Walking Works
Accepting that an activity as basic as walking can have powerful benefits may require updating your thinking about exercise. "We used to think that exercise had to hurt, and you had to bleed and throw up to accomplish anything," said Susan Johnson, director of continuing education at the Cooper Institute in Dallas, which studies the link between personal habits and health. "We now know that's not true." But all of the research fails to answer the question of how something so simple can have such salutary effects. As soon as you take that first step, a host of metabolically significant events is set in motion inside your body. According to Greg Heath, lead scientist in the CDC's physical activity and health branch, early in your walk your adrenal glands begin secreting adrenaline, which gets into your bloodstream and signals your heart to beat faster and causes your blood pressure to go up. The heart then begins to pump more blood away from the chest and into the muscles of the limbs you're using to get yourself down the street. As a result, blood vessels in the arms and legs begin to expand as they're fed more nutrients and oxygen by the blood. As your heart rate climbs, you're taking more breaths per minute, sometimes increasing your oxygen intake to 10 times the amount you'd be taking in if you were sitting still. As the muscles receive more blood, they begin to use up carbohydrates and sugar starches they've stored. Metabolism -- the process by which the body breaks down materials and converts them to fuel -- speeds up. As a result, so does digestion. All this activity causes the brain to release endorphins into the bloodstream. Endorphins, which have chemical properties similar to opium, are responsible for blocking pain and ushering in that cozy sense of well-being you feel as soon as your walk ends. Additionally, exercise causes the brain to release an abundance of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which works to elevate mood. "Methinks
that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow."
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