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 Issue 2 (09-18-01) Walking for health and fitness.
 Books: The Complete Guide to Walking for Health, Weight Loss, and Fitness. Mark Fenton. New York: Lyons Press, 2001. ISBN 1-58574-190-6. This handbook to walking for fitness offers guidance on integrating this most natural form of exercise into a daily activity routine to improve health, lose weight, and improve endurance. Four main sections give advice on how to build a daily habit of walking, using walking to promote weight loss, improving fitness, and, looking over the long term, encouraging walking as a lifelong fitness activity. Tips for trail walkers, a program for walking during pregnancy, an indoor fitness walking program using a treadmill, and many more special sections, including resources and contacts, are spread throughout the book. A reader/user diary is part of the 52-week plan for fitness that runs through the text. A handy subject index takes the reader to sections of interest. Order from Lyons Press: http://www.lyonspress.com/ top
Newspaper Articles: "Sneaker-Clad Army Wins Battle of the Mall." By Blaine Harden. The New York Times Online - National Section. August 28, 2001. Mall-walking for exercise in the 1,500 malls in the United States is quite popular, especially among older Americans. Most malls welcome walkers, and encourage them to use their facilities with incentives like free refreshments and shopping discounts. In local malls, walkers sometimes have formed organizations to support walking. The Times recounts the story of walkers in the Evergreen Plaza mall in Evergreen Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Mall management tried, and failed to buck the trend. To quote the story . . . "The antiwalker war that Evergreen Plaza fought so aggressively and then lost so pathetically demonstrates one of the hard realities of climate-controlled retail: In a nation that grew up in the mall and is now growing old there, mall walkers rule." Find the full
text of this story through your local library, or through the
New York Times Archive service. To sign up for a
free subscription to the daily online edition, click on http://www.nytimes.com/ "Physical Activity Trends --- United States, 1990--1998." Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. March 09, 2021 / 50(09);166-9. Data on leisure-time physical activity of adults in the U.S. from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), a population-based, random-digit-dialed telephone survey. Forty-three states and the District of Columbia collected data about moderate and vigorous physical activity, including bicycling and walking, for the years 1990-92 and 1994, 1996, and 1998. The prevalence of those who engaged in recommended levels of activity increased slightly from 24.3% in 1990 to 25.4% in 1998, and the prevalence of those reporting insufficient activity increased from 45.0% in 1990 to 45.9% in 1998. To download
the .pdf file containing this issue of the MMWR, click on http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/wk/mm5009.pdf To determine whether exercise characteristics (i.e., duration, frequency, and speed of walking) of Michigan adults met the Surgeon General's recommendations, the Michigan Department of Community Health analyzed data from the 1996 and 1998 Michigan Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) for those who reported walking as their only leisure time physical activity. This report summarizes the results of this analysis, which indicate that most walkers need to increase the frequency and perhaps the speed of their walking to comply with recommendations. To download
the .pdf file containing this issue of the MMWR, click on http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/wk/mm4925.pdf Research staff at the Childhood Weight Control Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School examined the relationships between physical activity and self-esteem in children aged 10 to 16 years old. Physical activity of participants in the study was monitored for one week, and their beliefs about health, social influences, self-esteem, and time spent in sedentary behaviors were determined through questionnaires and psychological tests. Results showed that overall, the participants spent over 75% of each day physically inactive, with only a brief time devoted to vigorous physical activity. Those children who did participate in high level physical activity had higher self-esteem and other positive behavioral traits than those who did not. To obtain
a copy of this journal article, check for availability at your
nearest medical library, or obtain through interlibrary loan at
your public library. Studies of exercise programs combined with behavior and lifestyle modification to prevent and treat childhood obesity are reviewed. Some highlights: children whose obesity is treated are better able to maintain healthy weight over a long-term period than are adults; and, overweight children whose obesity is treated respond positively to interventions that combine improvements in nutrition with structured exercise and behavior modification. The articles conclude that obese children have different physical, psychological, and emotional responses to exercise than children of normal weight, and they respond better to specialized programs that are structured to combine prescribed exercise with dietary changes and consistent behavior modification. To obtain
a copy of this journal article, check for availability at your
nearest medical library, or obtain through interlibrary loan at
your public library. This broad-ranging review looks at how social forces point children towards a sedentary lifestyle and present them with poor nutritional choices, making a potent combination that is producing an epidemic of childhood obesity in developed nations. Increased reliance on technology and labor-saving devices, passive leisure-time activities, and poor urban planning that does not provide adequate bicycle paths and sidewalks encourages inactivity. The authors review the adverse health risks and high economic costs to society that are caused by obesity. They use the reviewed studies to underscore the importance of prevention of obesity beginning in childhood, and point out that behaviors learned in childhood continue through lifetime. To obtain a copy of this journal article, check for availability at your nearest medical library, or obtain through interlibrary loan at your public library. top
Websites for walkers and bicyclists: American Volkssport Association www.ava.org American Walking Association www.americanwalk.org American Hiking Society www.americanhiking.org Appalachian Mountain Club www.outdoors.org Sierra Club www.sierraclub.org Appalachian Trail Conference www.appalachiantrail.org Continental Divide Trail Alliance www.cdtrail.org International Mountain Bicycling Association www.imba.com Mountain Bike Reviews http://mtbreview.com/
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