Eluding unfit lifestyles at ISU
Published: Friday, January 18, 2013
Updated: Friday, January 18, 2013 01:01
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Professor Kingsley spoke to an audience about the importance of physical activity to achieve and maintain a healthy lifestyle. The Student Recreation Center is one venue for students and staff to excercise indoor during the winter months (Photo by Mae Robyn Rhymes).
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Weight training is an effective way of staying fit (Photo by Mae Robyn Rhymes).
A few Indiana State University staff members sported pedometers to record their steps for a day and played a version of “Simon Says” during a fitness awareness presentation presented by associate professor of Kinesiology, recreation and sport, Derek Kingsley.
On Tuesday, Kingsley opened his presentation with one rule, which required his audience to stand up every time the Indiana State crest appeared on one of his power point slides.
Kingsley’s main focus was to bring awareness to how people need to worry about being fit rather than getting slim.
“Are you fit or fat? Does it matter?” Kingsley said.
Kingsley expressed his knowledge of the survival of fitness, how age can and can’t be a factor in people’s physical well-being, the importance of setting goals and understanding the component of physical fitness.
“Weight loss is irrelevant. Movement is what we need,” Kingsley said.
In his presentation, Kingsley pointed out the steady incline of Body Mass Index (BMI) percentages from 1990 through 2008, reaching over a 30 percent increase. According to studies, he said by the year 2016, over half of the United States population will be considered obese and unfit.
The Center of Disease Control (CDC) noted that the increasing number is due to the increase in heart related diseases from 1990 to 2002; this number is continuing to climb.
Additionally, he said that 60 percent of American adults do not fulfill the recommended daily physical activity regiment.
The amount of Americans that are completely sedentary has stayed at a median of 25 to 29 percent, while simultaneously the percentage of obesity continues to rise each year.
“You never hear that stuff on the news,” Kingsley said, referring to the lack of increase in American’s physical activity.
“Smokadiabesity,” which is a combination of smoking, diabetes and obesity, as a major threat to American’s health, Kingsley said. This could be corrected over time with physical fitness and healthy eating.
“It’s not obesity or disease that is going to kill us, but being unfit is going to kill us,” Kingsley said.
As a solution to America’s unfit society, Kingsley suggested activities people could do inside and outside of the gym. He said that playing with a dog can be equal to a weight lifting session, as both equal four METS (metabolic equivalents), which are units used to estimate the metabolic cost of physical activity.
The value of one MET is approximately equal to a person’s resting energy expenditure.
Further, Kingsley presented the side effects of losing activity. These include function limitations, obesity, the development of chronic diseases and other conditions, a decrease in psychological well being and cognitive thinking.
“It doesn’t matter what age you start exercising. It will always provide benefits for your body and mind,” Kingsley said.
In order to achieve active goals, Kingsley said it is important to set and document specific long and short-term goals. Avoiding barriers that restrict activity and keeping a goal-reminder note visible is the most effective way to stay motivated.
The staff members that walked in with a pedometer left the presentation with a greater knowledge of how to use it to its full capability. Kingsley gave tips such as positioning it flat and parallel with your knee on places like a belt or in a pocket of a blazer.
Kingsley explained how the pedometer needs to be balanced because of the weights inside the device. If the device is tilted, then the weights can’t touch and it won’t record or create spots while it counts people’s steps.
Walking can lower the levels like cholesterol, blood glucose and pressure.
“Taking the stairs over the elevator pays dividends,” Kingsley said. “… and fitness is like breakfast, you got to eat breakfast and you got to exercise.”
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