Koop Prizes Exercise Among Family Values

When C. Everett Koop was a mere 75, he played touch football when his extended family got together. He was the center for both teams.

The former U.S. surgeon general is now 79, and his football career is probably over--for lack of enough players, because the family is too scattered, he said. But Koop still thinks it’s good for personal fitness and for family values when families try to be physically active.

“I don’t know why they don’t,” he said. “It gives a darned good feeling.”

It beats watching television, Koop said. “Families tend to sit around the TV,” he said. “There’s no fellowship around a TV. They don’t even talk to each other.”

On the other hand, even as little activity as going for a walk gives a family not only exercise, but time to interact with each other, Koop noted. “I think we have gotten into the habit of doing our own thing,” he said.

Spring is a good time to start a family exercise program, because doing exercise together will have time to become a habit before cold weather returns, Koop said.

Koop’s focus on families and fitness is part of his Shape Up America! campaign to fight the trend to obesity among Americans. “Very few people know that obesity is the second-leading cause of preventable death,” he said. Smoking, which Koop battled as surgeon general, is No.1.

Koop estimated the annual death toll from obesity at 300,000. The death certificates may list such causes as high blood pressure or stroke, but these conditions are linked to excess weight, he said. Koop spoke from Portland, Ore., during a promotional tour for his Time Life Medical series of videos on medical problems.

Koop’s mission is to fight the obesity epidemic a few pounds at a time, with exercise and diet. “We don’t discourage the patient by making the job too big to accomplish,” he said. The trick is to not tell the person, “You’ve got 40 pounds of lard on you,” but to try to lose a little, and then try to lose some more, he said.

Koop is concerned about youngsters, whose habits can still be molded by parents. “Chubby little babies become fat kids, and they become fat adolescents, who become fat adults,” he said.

Getting families out requires a certain amount of new habit formation, much as quitting smoking does, Koop said. People first have to get the idea that they want to make the effort, then work up the desire to set a date to start, before they actually begin, he said.

To give them advice on how to make this work, Shape Up America! and the National Assn. for Sports and Physical Education have developed a 99-idea brochure. Among the tips:

* Schedule a regular time throughout the week for physical activity.

* Take turns selecting the activity for the family.

* Spend as much time outdoors as possible.

* And get up to change the channel, instead of sitting there and punching the remote.