Pass the Celery, Please
Quick, wherever you are, right now, stand up to read this. Get up. That’s it. No, straighter than that.
Good. Surgeon General David Satcher has done some pretty serious study heading into the peak holiday overeating season and declared that this current crop of Americans--yes, us!--is “the most sedentary generation in the history of the world.” Which is a pretty broad statement. And he was standing when he said that.
Now for those of us unable to waddle to our dictionaries because of the large bowls of food residing in our laps, sedentary means “marked by much sitting about ... fixed to one spot, as a barnacle.” It seems that being sedentary is directly connected to obesity. Obesity, the dictionary says, is a city in Germany that, no, wait--there’s a grease smudge--that’s Oberhausen. Obesity--here it is--is the state of being “very fat, stout, corpulent.” Harsh terms at any time of year.
Dr. Satcher’s valid point, which is really good for you, like salads, is that too many of us are larger than is healthy. Actually, too many of us are downright fat. He cites a whole bunch of really depressing statistics--300,000 Americans per year die from obesity-related illnesses, compared with 400,000 deaths from smoking-related problems. If that doesn’t make you head for the fridge, he says only one state (Illinois) requires phys ed through high school and two out of three adult Americans do not exercise for 30 minutes five times a week. The doctor says walking 9,240 feet in 35 minutes is good exercise as long as, of course, it’s not to and from the refrigerator.
It won’t surprise Americans that some desk-bound bureaucrats in Washington devised a healthy acronym called BMI, for body mass index. Here’s what you do: Divide your weight in pounds by your height in inches. Divide the result again by your height in inches, then multiply the result by 703. Or go to an Internet site that has a BMI calculator, like www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/bmicalc.htm (supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute).
Got it? OK, up to 24 is healthy. From 25 to 30 is overweight. Over 30 BMI and you need to lose a lot of weight, which is tough but easier than the other solution: getting taller.
Satcher recommends the usual--consuming more fruits, veggies and whole grains and less meat, fat and TV. Another way to increase exercise would be to make TV remote controls weigh, say, 25 pounds.
All right, you can sit back down now.
