Study of 700,000 People in 46 Countries Shows How Lazy America Is

Americans have more luxuries and more opportunities to lay back and do nothing than perhaps any other country in the world. Perhaps that’s why on a global scale, the U.S. is one of the laziest countries on Earth, according to a Stanford University study. [1]

The great Ron Swanson once said:

“The whole point of [America] is if you want to eat garbage, balloon up to 600 pounds and die of a heart attack at 43, you can! You are free to do so. To me, that’s beautiful.”

Sure, it’s a quote from a sitcom (“Parks and Recreation”), but it appears that an awful lot of Americans actually live this way.

Stanford researchers used step-counters installed in the smartphones of about 700,000 people in 46 countries to track their walking activity. The study was massive – 1,000 times bigger than any previous research into human movement, according to Scott Delp, a professor of bioengineering who co-led the research.

Read: Power Walking: One of the Best Complete Exercises Around

The findings, published in the journal Nature, show China is the least lazy of all nations. People living in Hong Kong, especially, are very active, with individuals walking an average of about 6,880 steps per day.

Indonesia was found to be the laziest country, with Indonesians only walking about 3,513 steps.

Americans averaged about 4,774 daily steps, which is pretty close to the worldwide average of 4,961.

Source: USA Today

But average number of steps didn’t always coincide with more obesity in the study. Obesity levels can be more accurately gauged by calculating “activity inequality” – the difference between most active and least active. The team found that in nations with higher rates of obesity, larger gaps existed between those who walked a lot and those who didn’t walk often at all.

Read: Man Drops an ASTONISHING 300 Pounds by Walking to Walmart

Researcher Tim Althoff said:

“For instance, Sweden had one of the smallest gaps between activity rich and activity poor… it also had one of the lowest rates of obesity.” [2]

Gender was found to be a significant factor in country-to-country activity inequality. The study found that men were more active than women, including in the U.S. That was not the case in every country, however. For example, men and women in Japan exercised a similar amount. [3]

Jure Leskovec, a computer scientist at Stanford and a co-author of the study, said:

“When activity inequality is greatest, women’s activity is reduced much more dramatically than men’s activity, and thus the negative connections to obesity can affect women more greatly.”

The scientists hope their findings will contribute to public health campaigns aimed at reducing obesity and support policies designed to make cities more “walkable.”

Sources:

[1] USA Today

[2] National Post

[3] HealthDay

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About Julie Fidler:
	Julie Fidler is a freelance writer, legal blogger, and the author of Adventures in Holy Matrimony: For Better or the Absolute Worst. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two ridiculously spoiled cats. She occasionally pontificates on her blog.

Rates of this Preventable Disease Quadrupled in 35 Years

Type 2 diabetes, a serious disease (especially if left untreated) that can result in amputations and lifelong complications, can usually be prevented through healthy diet and exercise, and that’s exactly what needs to happen, the World Health Organization (WHO) warns. The number of people with the condition has quadrupled in less than 40 years, with approximately 422 million people now suffering from the ailment.

The researchers behind the WHO study, released last year, shows one of the largest of diabetes trends to date. The agency notes how the aging population and increasing levels of obesity make the disease “a defining issue for global public health.”

Majid Ezzati, a professor at Imperial College London who led the WHO research, said:

“Obesity is the most important risk factor for type 2 diabetes and our attempts to control rising rates of obesity have so far not proved successful.”

The study used data from 4.4 million adults in various regions of the world to estimate the prevalence of age-adjusted diabetes for 200 countries.

Researchers discovered that between 1980 and 2014, more men than women developed diabetes, and rates of the disease rose significantly in many low- and middle-income nations, including China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt, and Mexico.

Shockingly, no significant decrease in diabetes was observed in any country.

The findings make it clear that there is an urgent need to address unhealthy lifestyles globally, as appropriately stated by Margaret Chan, the WHO’s director-general.

“If we are to make any headway in halting the rise in diabetes, we need to rethink our daily lives: to eat healthily, be physically active, and avoid excessive weight gain.”

Source: Self Chec

Other findings of the study include:

• Northwestern Europe has the lowest rates of diabetes among both adult sexes, with age-adjusted prevalence lower than 4% among women, and about 5-6% among men in Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

• Pacific Island nations saw the largest increase in diabetes rates, followed by the Middle East and North Africa, in countries such as Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

• Half of the adults with diabetes in 2014 lived in 5 countries – China, India, the United States, Brazil, and Indonesia.

• Rates of diabetes more than doubled for men in India and China between 1980 and 2014. [1]

• Nearly a quarter of adults in 2010 (18 and older) were classified as “insufficiently physically active.”

• 84% of female adolescents and 78% of male adolescents fall under the category of “insufficiently physically active.”

• In 2014, nearly 1 in 4 adults was overweight, and more than 1 in 10 were obese. [2]

The WHO said in its Global Diabetes Report that a “whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach” is needed to tackle diabetes, which racks up an estimated $827 billion annually in patient care and medicine.

Some of the risk factors for Type 2 diabetes are not modifiable, such as genetics, ethnicity, and age. But these risk factors do not mean an individual will go on to develop the disease. Each person can modify his or her diet and eating habits, and physical activity level to help fend off the disease.

Read: Halt Diabetes with These 8 Natural Foods

The WHO said:

“At the individual level, intensive interventions to improve diet and physical activity can prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes in people at high risk.”

In the report, the WHO calls on government sectors to “systematically consider the health impact of policies in trade, agriculture, finance, transport, education and urban planning — recognizing that health is enhanced or obstructed as a result of policies in these and other areas.”

Dr. Etienne Krug, of the WHO, said:

“Diabetes is a silent disease, but it is on an unrelenting march that we need to stop. We can stop it, we know what needs to be done, but we cannot let it evolve like it does because it has a huge impact on people’s health, on families, and on society.” [3]

Sources:

[1] The Huffington Post

[2] CNN

[3] Daily Mail

Self Chec

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About Julie Fidler:
	Julie Fidler is a freelance writer, legal blogger, and the author of Adventures in Holy Matrimony: For Better or the Absolute Worst. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two ridiculously spoiled cats. She occasionally pontificates on her blog.

Surprising: Exercise may Actually Improve Eyesight

You might have heard that exercise treats the symptoms of depression and helps you prevent conditions like heart disease and diabetes. Well, you may be surprised to hear that some research even suggests that exercise can help improve your vision.

Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara looked at the effect of exercise on the brain by fitting 18 participants with heart rate monitors and asking them to complete an orientation task while on a stationary bike. This was then repeated during low- and high-intensity exercise and while at rest. The data were then fed into a computer for the researchers to assess. [1]

The team found that low-intensity exercise helped activate the visual cortex, which is involved in processing things that the eyes see.

Study author Barry Giesbrecht said:

“We show that the increased activation – what we call arousal – changes how information is represented, and it’s much more selective. That’s important to understand because how that information then gets used could potentially be different.” [1]

Lead author Tom Bullock, a postdoctoral researcher in UC Santa Barbara’s Attention Lab, said:

“We found that the peak response is enhanced during low-intensity exercise relative to rest and high-intensity exercise. We also found that the curve narrows in, which suggests a reduction in bandwidth.

Source: Mercola.com

Together, the increased gain and reduced bandwidth suggest that these neurons are becoming more sensitive to the stimuli presented during the low-intensity exercise condition relative to the other conditions.” [2]

Read: 4 Natural Ways to Enhance Vision

The research was inspired by a 2014 Emory University study showing that neuron firing rates in mouse and fly brain regions associated with visual processing increase during physical activity. [1] [2]

Giesbrecht added:

“There’s an interesting cross-species link that shows these effects of arousal might have similar consequences for how visual information is processed. That implies the evolution of something that might provide a competitive advantage in some way.” [2]

As for how this occurs, Bullock says there is evidence to suggest that:

“It may be driven by specific neurotransmitters that increase global cortical excitability and that can account for the change in the gain and the increase in the peak response of these tuning profiles.” [2]

The findings point to the overall benefit of exercise on the brain. While many people turn to “brain-training” games to strengthen the mind, experts warned earlier this year that we may be facing a global blindness epidemic from spending so many hours focusing on computer and phone screens.

For the sake of your eyes, skip the apps and activate your brain by getting physically active.

Giesbrecht said that:

“The benefits of brief bouts of exercise might provide a better and more tractable way to influence information processing—versus, say, brain training games or meditation—and in a way that’s not tied to a particular task.” [2]

The findings appear in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Sources:

[1] nzherald.co

[2] Futurity.org

Fitness.Mercola.com

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About Julie Fidler:
	Julie Fidler is a freelance writer, legal blogger, and the author of Adventures in Holy Matrimony: For Better or the Absolute Worst. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two ridiculously spoiled cats. She occasionally pontificates on her blog.

Drink Alcohol? This Might Cut Your Risk of Alcohol-Related Early Death

If you’re a drinker, carving out 2 to 2.5 hours a week to exercise may reduce your risk of dying early from alcohol-related cancer and other health problems.

Not drinking would eliminate that risk, but let’s be realistic.

Drinking can be Fun, but…

Let’s face it; we live in an alcohol-rich society, and many of us like it that way. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore how it could affect our health.

Alcohol consumption is linked to higher rates of early death from any cause, including cancer. The more you drink, the higher your risk. Though, just to confuse things, past studies indicate that moderate drinking may have some heart health benefits. [1]

People’s drinking habits seem to go hand-in-hand with their lifestyle habits, in general. Drinking and smoking usually go together, for example. But not many studies exist where researchers looked at how alcohol consumption affects people who exercise compared to those who don’t.

So a Few Scientists Decided to Study It

Emmanuel Stamatakis, an associate professor at University of Sydney in Australia, and his colleagues looked at more than 36,000 middle-aged men and women for an average of nearly 10 years and tracked their death rates and causes of death.

The individuals tracked by the researchers were over the age of 40 and had provided data for 6 editions of the Health Survey for England up to 2006, and the 1998 and 2003 editions of the Scottish Health Survey.

The Findings

The team found that only those who weren’t physically active – defined as those who didn’t get the recommended 150 minutes of moderate-to-intense exercise each week – had a higher risk of early mortality.

Those who reported getting the recommended amount of exercise had slightly lower death rates, as long as they drank no more than 1 to 2 drinks per day. However, those who drank in excess, at levels considered dangerous for their health, showed higher rates of death regardless of how much they exercised.

For women, hazardous drinking means consuming 8 to 20 alcoholic beverages a week. For men, it means consuming 21 to 49 standard alcoholic drinks per week. [3]

Source: Medical Xpress

Stamatakis says:

“Among the physically active, there was no increase in cancer and all-cause mortality up to hazardous levels of alcohol consumption.” [2]

Furthermore, there didn’t appear to be a difference in mortality rates among physically active participants, whether they exercised at the minimum recommended amount or the maximum amount.

The authors concluded:

“Meeting the current physical activity public health recommendations offsets some of the cancer and all-cause mortality risk associated with alcohol drinking.”

The Study’s Limits

The study relied on self-reporting, so it doesn’t definitely prove cause and effect, says Michael Hyek, senior director of OhioHealth’s McConnell Heart Health Center. Even so, Stamatakis believes his study gives “yet another reason” to promote exercise.

He asks:

“How many more reasons do we need for physical activity to be taken seriously?”

Hyek agrees, saying:

“I know very few chronic medical conditions that exercise will not have a positive impact on. It’s a good thing regardless of what your circumstances are.”

So, if you drink, try not to overdo it (at least not too often, and don’t scrimp on exercise.

Actually, don’t scrimp on exercise, even if you don’t drink.

Sources:

[1] Time

[2] The Guardian

[3] CNN

Medical Xpress

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About Julie Fidler:
	Julie Fidler is a freelance writer, legal blogger, and the author of Adventures in Holy Matrimony: For Better or the Absolute Worst. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two ridiculously spoiled cats. She occasionally pontificates on her blog.

Finland: This is How Much Exercise Kids Need

The Finnish government has recently introduced physical fitness guidelines, stating that children need at least 3 hours of exercise per day. Finnish children are known the be among the world’s most physically fit. [1]

This guideline is 3 times the amount of exercise recommended for children in the United States and the United Kingdom. Both governments, respectively, recommend that children put in 1 hour of activity per day. While both countries ask parents to limit screen time and sedentary activities, this recommendation is still well below the new Finnish par.

Within the new Finnish guidelines, children under 8 are asked to be the most physically active.

In addition to representing especially-fit children, Finnish children also perform incredibly well academically when compared to other countries in the developed world. Government officials believe the 2 are connected.

Finland’s Minister of Education and Culture Sanni Grahn-Laasonen said on the new decision:

“Exercise promotes learning and provides experiences which lead to happiness and success. When children exercise together they develop interaction skills and connect socially, and it’s healthy, too.”

Grahn-Laasonen says that children should get this physical activity in at daycare, in school and doing hobbies at home or outside of the school environment.

It is recommended that Finnish children do not sit for more than 1 hour at a time and that parents discourage them from doing sedentary activities for several hours at a time. If a child is doing something which requires sitting for several hours, such as homework or reading, it is recommended that they get up and move around for a few minutes once every hour to counteract the sedentary activity.

Read: Study Most Kids Lack Ideal Cardiovascular Health – What Do We Do?

In light of the new recommendation, schools are looking at implementing new ways of teaching into the curriculum to ensure that students receive adequate exercise. They are also attempting to include at least 3 hours of physical education each week in an effort to get kids moving even more.

Children and families within the country were largely supportive of the idea, as indicated by a recent survey. Many said they planned to use or encourage their children to use the school gym during breaks from learning or to increase the hours of extracurricular club activities.

Sources:

[1] BBC

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About Anna Scanlon:
	Anna Scanlon is an author of YA and historical fiction and a PhD student at the University of Leicester where she is finishing her degree in modern history. You can find out more about Anna and her books on her lifestyle blog annainwonderland.co.uk.