Exercise: Is Something Really Better than Nothing?

A Hard Workout Session is a Day Well Spent in Saving Heart Health

Choose between CBSE or ICSE syllabus? Enroll for abacus or Kumon classes? Piano or guitar during weekends? Our minds keep racing over these choices repeatedly and rarely do parents take special interest in their kid’s physical activity needs such as finding the best coaching center for their cricket-loving boy or zeroing upon the best ballet school for the dancing beauty! We barely focus on physical activity classes and worse, even schools ignore much of the physical education periods swapping them for science or math classes. While the guidelines say that people aged between 5 and 19 years should do at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity everyday to improve and safeguard their health the common man has no time or patience to pay heed to such suggestions, they fall a prey to different illnesses and reap the fruits of their misdeeds.
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If Not Now, then When?
Ironically, the world cribs about underperforming in the exercise domain where kids don’t meet their daily exercise requirements-not even a game of hopscotch, frisbee or badminton while we have research results that its vigorous-intensity activity and not moderate-intensity activity that reduce cardiovascular risk. Many of them forget that they have physical friends existing outside their four walls, seek the companionship of gadgets or at most or play a game of cricket during weekends. What do we expect of such kids? Lift the dumbbell, run a marathon or jog in the sun?

Cardiovascular disease is one of the major killers today. Although heart disease risk might run in the family its always factors such as exercise and diet that enhance or decrease the probability of occurrence. A group of researchers studied adolescents between 12 and 17 years on the impact of the different intensity exercises on heart health.

It has always been either moderate-intensity exercises for a longer time or vigorous-intensity exercise for a shorter duration when it comes to saving heart health. We have never differentiated between the effects of each as long as the respective durations were fulfilled. It has always been 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise a week or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise a week to fulfill activity requirements. This study wanted to do exactly this-separate these two exercise forms and observe the effects. Likewise, they found exacting differences between the forms. While moderate-intensity exercises had different health benefits it was vigorous-intensity exercises that appeared to create the needed change in cardiovascular risk domain. Brisk walking or light aerobic steps are moderate-intensity exercises while running vigorously in a playground, swimming, dancing, cycling or practicing some team sports are vigorous-intensity exercises. Basically, we expel six times the energy that we use at rest while involved in vigorous-intensity exercise while it is only three times the energy when we practice moderate-intensity exercise.

So, getting into a normal routine of swimming, dancing or running is not going to be tough for your little one nor your adolescent kid. Ensuring to pursue such activities are the only important ways to become fitter to minimize heart risk. The same research team also found a stronger link between time spent watching TV and the risk of developing diabetes or heart disease in life. Watching TV has serious health effects on the body which have been explained in detail at www.firsteatright.com. It might be a coronary heart disease, heart attack, congenital heart attack, angina or stroke that strikes someone in their 40s, 50s or 60s but the roots of these can be traced back to younger years or childhood years in fact. Rather than wasting time on the Internet or smartphone get out with your kid, encourage him/her to play out, teach them the importance of activity and nurture them into healthy citizens.