There is emerging a new definition of patriotism. Being strong and being healthy is one of the most patriotic acts that an American can do to get our country back to being at it’s best. In the past, patriotic acts and services would include joining the military, volunteering for a civic cause, displaying–pledging–saluting the flag, and other ways of supporting our democracy. But, now there is a new evil empire hovering over each of us that has the power to kill our patriotic spirit, destroy our economy, and shackle each of us. That approaching calamity is the perfect storm – the intersection of eating poorly, stress, and sitting-on-our-ass-most of the day–week–month–year. This is a new condition that we have never seen before and it is rapidly overtaking the American ability to live a free and independent life. The new condition is sedentarism.
What’s more, sendentarism is not just an affliction of the USA. Sendentarism is a major cause of death worldwide, with new research suggesting that living a sedentary life is killing as many people in America as cigarette smoking or obesity when it comes to raising the risk for all cause disease and mortality. Just published online, four different research papers in a special physical activity-themed section of The Lancet, the number of inactivity-related deaths at 5.3 million worldwide as recently as 2008.
This figure attributed to an inactivity-related risk for major killers such as breast and colon cancer, type 2 diabetes and heart disease amounts to a staggering one out of every 10 deaths both in the USA and globally. That figure means that there are as many people dying as a result of smoking cigarettes as there are from an inactive lifestyle.
There’s a simple solution requiring a complex strategy – get Americans moving. Michelle Obama has launched Let’s Move! but there are thousands of us, like ZONING Fitness and its partner and licensee for school activity programs — Interactive Health Technologies and Heart Zones Coaching who are part of the war that is fighting sedentarism – locally and globally. Let’s together grow this new patriotic army to get this country back to it’s premier health and fitness status and beat back the evil empire of sedentarism.
One last thought –think about this staggering statistic – one-third of all adults – globally amounting to about 1.5 billion people – face a 20 percent to 30 percent greater risk for disease due to failing to engage in the kind of routine physical activity. The solution recommended by publish health authorities and the minimum amount of physical activity is 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week. We can each do this to save our nation.
Let’s get America fit. Let’s get America moving. How can you help? Learn HZT, Heart Zones Training or the sister cardio-program, ZONING Fitness and start to help your neighbor, community school teachers, health care practitioners, and your family members to start down a new pathway to living a healthy and long life. Buy them a Blink heart rate monitor and teach and show your new enlistees how to spend 30 minutes a day in the flashing yellow zone – it’s as easy as that to do – you can do it.