to be published Autumn 2010
One Thing We CAN Do
By Nancy Logue, Ph.D.
The statistics, trends and forecasts about the health of the American people are worrisome. Increasingly sedentary lifestyles and highly processed foods are correlated with increased health risks. The consequences for individual well-being and healthcare economics are staggering. There is one thing we CAN do to improve our own health and our healthcare System: Be Active.
The numerous medical, emotional and functional benefits of exercise are well-documented and well-known. And yet, with summer over, cooler weather and school-year routines starting up, it can be difficult to maintain the commitment to an active lifestyle. Let’s Move has just announced the “Million PALA Challenge” to “get one million or more Americans to sign up for and achieve the Presidential Active Lifestyle Award (PALA) between now and September, 2011. “
Let’s Move is First Lady Michele Obama’s initiative to solve the challenge of childhood obesity within a generation. As part of its comprehensive approach to engage kids and families in reducing and preventing weight problems, Let’s Move is working with the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition (PCFSN), and the Department of Health and Human Services to improve the nation’s health.
An active lifestyle is not just for the young and athletic. The PALA is designed to help people of all ages, sizes, shapes, abilities or disabilities to become more active and enjoy improved fitness, health and happiness. “There are more than 300 million people in America today” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at the launch of the Million PALA Challenge, “and we want every single one of them to live a healthy lifestyle.”
To achieve the active lifestyle award you must be active five of seven days for 6 of 8 weeks, adults for 30 minutes, children for 60 minutes. Being active means doing anything physically active – sport or leisure activities, household chores, dancing, going to the gym or fun and games, but not video games.
In over twenty years of helping people struggling with all kinds of food, weight and other self-care issues or problem behaviors, I have repeatedly seen that a key element of sustained behavior change is reasonable goals. Achievable goals create experiences of success, experiences of success reinforce a sense of effectiveness and possibility and with practice this creates a positive momentum for progress. Fine-tuning goals to find the type and level of activity that suits your preferences and your present condition makes it more likely that you will enjoy being active and incorporate it into your ongoing lifestyle.
The PALA challenge website offers many tools to support participants in setting realistic goals, tracking progress and rewarding success. Over 100 activities are listed from aerobics to yoga (they will have to add zumba) to help you identify a variety of ways to get moving toward health. Accumulating 30 minutes or 60 minutes of movement or increasing the number of steps you take in the course of a day does not have to be continuous. It is good to include a variety of activities to develop strength, endurance, flexibility and balance.
Kudos to Courier Times health reporter/blogger Jo Ciavaglia for sharing her adventures in multi-sport competitions. It is inspiring to hear her describe the battle between “I can’t” and the “I will” as well as the satisfaction of challenging yourself and meeting your own goals.
On Saturday, October 2nd 100 local children will receive their Presidential Active Lifestyle Awards at Kidstock2010, joining 57,276 fellow Americans throughout the country who have completed the president’s challenge.
Let’s Move and the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition encourages schools, families and communities to get healthy together. To improve fitness now and develop habits to maintain fitness through a whole lifetime, it helps a lot, as Jo Ciavaglia wrote, to have company along the way. Thus the “Million PALA Challenge” invites all of us to support each other in leading active lifestyles, for the sake of our own health, as role models for our families and communities, and to do our part to reduce the costly and painful incidence of preventable illness.
There is nothing like that “CAN DO” feeling that comes from meeting a challenge. Knowing that you are doing something that helps the community is an added bonus.
Helpful websites:
www.fitness.gov
www.letsmove.gov
www.presidentschallenge.org
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