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Very funny fitness quote in relation to inactivity and the difficulties faced with performing everyday tasks.

A new fitmate, Clair C, who at the sprightly age of 24, found it difficult to carry the groceries home due to her lack of strength in her shoulders. While it may seem comical that she said I’II have to “lift more weights or starve” as she would be limited in the amount of food that she could carry, there is a more serious side to muscle atrophy (muscle loss).

While there is a saying “use it or lose it“, there have been numerous studies that support endurance resistance training earlier on in life determines how your body will hold up later in life.

The Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University that found that a the long-term benefits of regular endurance exercise found they had increased muscle stem cells which in turn help maintains muscles.

Prof. Dafna Benayahu found that the density of stem cells per muscle fibres increased sinificantly for a group of rats that were placed on a tread mill for 20 minutes per day.

Towards the end of the experiment, the older rats had a massive 33% to 47% increase in stem cell density in their muscle fibres versus the younger rats of 20% to 35%. increase.

This was the first time that research supported by people who exercise regularly throughout their life aged more gracefully versus those who lead a sedentary lifestyle.

Last night there was a great show on the relationship between happiness and having a sedentary lifestyle titled “Making Australia Happy”.

The the show highlighted many factors that can contribute to one’s level of happiness and leading a sedentary lifestyle played a big part in how you feel. Similarly having high stress levels led to the release of cortisol which in turn leads to changes in your body’s chemical balances.

Another factor that was taken into consideration was “mindfulness”, that is being mindful of his surroundings and other people around you. This can be as simple as taking 5 minutes out of your day to perform a random act of kindness to a complete stranger.

The idea of having this consciousness of the world around you was to focus on the present what was happening now and not allowing your forced to run away. One great activity involved doing something nice for a complete stranger, the idea being That you are engaged the world around you as opposed to being self focused.

Other factors that increase the risk of a person being unhappy was nutrition. It was disturbing to the people who participated in the study were actually consuming during the day, while this may be at the extreme end of the average person’s daily food consumption, it does highlight the appalling nutritional habits of some people. While there may be many psychological factors that influenced a person’s diet, what food is consumed exacerbates their dependency on high fatty food.

While exercise plays an important part how you feeling in the release of endorphins, similarily if you do start to exercise rigorously your body needs the right mix of energy for fuel and by eating rubbish you’re giving your body is a poor foundation to perform exercise and recover adequately.

The great thing was there was the precise way of measuring one’s activity levels during the day, this involves wearing a armband (Sensewear) which measured the orientation in relation to the ground i.e. if you’re sitting, sleeping and their level of movement. The show highlighted the effects of leading such as sedentary lifestyle, one participant in particular only managed three hours per day whereby they were not sleeping or sitting down.

This is quite a disturbing expose of how one person who perceives that they were doing some level of activity during the day i.e. a little walking while in reality the armband monitoring device confirmed that being confined to the computer desk for long periods or alternatively spending time in the car lead do minimal levels of physical activity.
This can lead to the increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

The ultimately living at physically active lifestyle not only helps with the release of endorphins target helps prepare for your body for a good night’s sleep.

So take the “Happiness test” and see how you fare, you may be surprised by the results.

The Gillard Goverment’s announcement that the Labor government will not be introducing the junk food tax begs the question whether the government is truly taking this issue seriously or will they merely commission another report to confirm what we already know.

One such investigation to improves the country health, in particular managing and reducing the countries growing obesity rate is the report generated from the Preventative Health Task Force that recommended introducing a tax on energy dense foods or commonly referred to as junk food.

This comes at a time when childhood obesity is at epidemic levels with the recent report into Child Development and Play commissioned by homeware’s giant Ikea found that a disturbing 66% watch more than four hours of TV per day.

A similar report from the US from the Journal of pediatrics similarity found 66% of preschoolers viewed more than two hours per day of content from a TV or computer screen.

Unfortunately implementing strategies and policies which at a the minimum stop the obesity rate let alone reduce the percentage of children overweight or obese seems to be weighted down by bureaucracy and the effects it will have on the food manufacturers and distribution landscape.

While childhood obesity, or more specifically obesity for the general population is a complex issue, we need to be a cohesive approach from not only government, but the educational providers, parents and media companies.

The key areas that need to be addressed but may prove to be unpopular are:

1.Introducing a junk food tax

2.Restricting marketing of junk food to children through all types of electronic and printed media

3.Food labeling laws to remove misleading and confusing packaging

4.Changing the school canteen menu to exclude food & beverages that are high is salt, sugar and fat, limiting processed foods and supplying fresh fruit while encouraging the consumption of tap water

5.Subsidies for healthier foods at day care centres, pre school and primary schools

6.Parents limiting sedentary behavior such as watching TV, playing video games, surfing the internet, talking on mobile phones, sending sms and watching DVD or streamed content from the web

7.Stopping the sponsorship of any event that is primarily attended by or marketed to children by junk food companies

8.Programs to increase childhood exercise

9.Educating children about the benefits of healthy eating

10.Stopping the association of brand ambassadors with junk food

While there seems to be a genuine government interest in tackling childhood obesity, we need to see action rather than debate or the commissioning of more reports, or reports that analysis all the existing reports.

If this situation is allowed to continue unabated, we will have a generation of children with Type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease dying before there parents.

What a great initiative, with people become more reliant on the car to move about most major cities, having a car free day encompassing major streets in the heart of the city is a great way to get people exploring other forms of transport.
Walking, cycling, trams, buses and trains are great alternatives to get around, the worst case scenario is a person having to walk a few kilometers to get to their chosen destination.

WOW Pod

This mini house has everything a gamers requires and has stimulated much interest from players.
The player can choose from food items such as ‘Crunchy Spider Surprise’ or ‘Beer Basted Ribs’ all which don’t appear to be very nutritionally rich.

While this is designed by Massachusetts University as a research project into the design of “hybrid physical/digital objects for play, performance and psycho-physiotherapy it’s a little disturbing that such a product has a market in the real world.