Physical Activity from the Lazy Side

With today’s advance technologies, we can see the world without stepping out of our room. Looking at those television shows such as national geographic, we can excel our knowledge. Surfing on the internet, we can know what is happening around world. It is nice that we can achieve all that with technologies, but it would be more exciting when we can experience the world for ourselves. Besides, just sitting around in the room observing the world will have a huge negative impact on our physical health in general. As I mentioned in my past blogs, that doing physical activities is a must to a healthy life. To support that, I have found a medical research to share. In fact, exercising in the nature is the best way to enjoy life and experience the world.

This medical research that I found was done by the research group, Lifestyle and Health at theUniversity of Pernambuco. The research is to find out the common factors associated with physical activity and sedentary behaviour in teenagers. This is a cross-sectional-study and using Chi-square method (the calculation using probability and elimination) which conduct three groups of students in high school. In 4217 students who participated, most revealed that they are exposed to sedentary behaviour and these are the dependent variables of the research. Other factors were also taken in concern include but are not limited to gender, age and race acting as independent variable. Large sample group was selected through Epi-info software for randomization because the research’s objective was to pin point the ten health-related behaviour factors from physical activity and sedentary behaviour. As reported by Health Enhancing Physical Activity for young people, youth who does 60 minutes of exercise on at least five days a week are considered physically active and individual who spend three or more hours doing sedentary activity such as watching tv are considered exposed to sedentary activities.

The processes of the experiment includes three stages: first, draw the density of schools in each micro state, then draw the density of student from each selected school, and lastly, conduct the questions by six master's program graduate Hebiatrai University of Pemambuco. The result of this study shows there are 65.1% of students are physically inactive and amongst the 65.1%, 70% are girls and 30% are boys. The researches also found that 40.9% of sedentary behaviour is on weekdays and 49.9% on the weekends through a research hierarchical approach. Students who are exposed to sedentary behaviour are found significantly associated with the difference in their gender, place of residence, part of the class, grade, occupational status and participation in physical education classes. One of the interesting facts that we can find from this study is that race, living with parents, and maternal education seems not to be correlated with physical activity level. However, age is an important factor of sedentary behaviour on both weekends and weekdays.

According to this Journal of Epidemiology, we can conclude that sedentary behaviour will cause insufficient level of physical activities in teens. In addition, we can tell that over half of the teens have the trend of not being physical active. I have talked about the consequences of being physically inactive in many of my blogs. Not only it can easily cause chronic diseases and obesity, it will affect the growth of the teenagers as Health and Human Services has said. More importantly, teenagers will not know how to appreciate the nature and the world with that sedentary behaviour.

THIS IS WHAT YOU CALL... FAT TV!!!!!

- THE CHOICE IS YOURS!****

Bibliograhy

Pernambuco, U. o. (2010, 3). Physical activity and sedentary behavior among adolscent high school students. Retrieved 7 24, 2011, from Scielo.br: http://www.scielo.br/scieloOrg/php/reflinks/php?refpaid=S1415-790X201000010001000002&paid=S1415-790X2010000100010&Ing=en

Services, U. D. (1996). A Report of the Surgeon General. Retrived 7 24, 2011, from Physical Activity and Health: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?scritp=sci_arttext&paid=S1415-790X2010000100010&Ing=en&nrm=iso&tirg=en

Physical Activity fights Stress

As I have mentioned in my past blogs, physical inactivity awareness has become a world-stage concern. There are many ways to improve one’s physical ability and exercising habits but the easiest way would be start exercising. Being physical active does not only benefits our body such as building muscle, burning fat, or keeping fit, but in fact, it affects our mental health. A lot of people may not believe that these two factors are correlated since they do not see any relationship in between exercising and mental health, but when a person is being physical active, his/her mental state will be more positive.

This can be easily proven by those adults who are having the habit of exercising. They tend to be happier, and more successful in life. That is because exercising can reduce people’s stresses which directly affect their performance in work or other activities. Many studies have conducted to support the saying of the human body releases hormones such as endorphins (happy hormone) in our blood stream to promote wellbeing when exercising. On the other hand, teens today are not doing as well as the adults. A lot of teenagers are facing a huge stress from their studies but since they are not being physically active, they could not reduce their stresses in proper ways. This has led to many problems in deed. One of the biggest factors would be teens’ behaviors is becoming fatigue. The University Health Center suggests that students who exercise have increased ability to concentrate and are more energized. Furthermore, those who are physically inactive stand a higher chance to be in bad mood or even in depression which will again directly affect their academic performances. Recently, a cross sectional study was conducted by the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London that resulted in 32% of the sample group are only doing one or none of the sessions required to stay physically active. Even if the study shows that health “benefits were observed at“minimal level of at least 20 minutes a week of any physical activity”” Canadian teenagers should be required to do at least 60 minutes of exercise per week. Therefore, stress is one thing that we have to deal with in our lives, reducing it with exercising would be one of the best way to handle it.

Exercising comes with many benefits. Especially for teens today, they need to become more physically active. Exercise will improve their performances in school since their stresses from studies would be reduced. Also, by participating in physical activities with friends or family can generate social bonding, so teens are not likely to suicide or have chronic mental illnesses. According to Health Canada, frequent exercise behavior is important when it comes to healthy growth and development. Teenagers should be aware of active living lifestyle by incorporating exercise in their everyday life.

References:

Elizabeth Scott, M. (2011, April 25). What Types of Stress Reduction Exercise Are Most Effective? Retrieved July 11, 2011, from About.com:http://stress.about.com/od/programsandpractices/f/exercise.htm

Georgia, U. o. (n.d.). Managing Stress: A Guide for College Students. Retrieved July 11, 2011 , from The Universty Health Center:http://www.uhs.uga.edu/stress/exercise.html

Physical activity reduces stress . (2008, April 10). Retrieved July 11, 2011, from NHS health news:http://www.nhs.uk/news/2008/04April/Pages/Physicalactivityreducesstress.aspx

Why Is Physical Activity Good For Stress Anxiety Management? (n.d.). Retrieved July 11, 2011, from Learn and Treat Anxiety: http://learnandtreatanxiety.com/stress-anxiety-management/