Spotlight

I hope you are standing up when you read this. Just when we thought we had a handle on one of the most pernicious causes of death in the U.S., smoking, along comes another with a longer reach and literally much broader implications for the health of our nation’s adults and children. The latest scientific research is pointing toward physical inactivity, and sitting in particular, as a serious threat to our well being.

In July The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, launched a series of alarming reports, confirming that physical inactivity is a leading risk factor for deaths due to non-communicable diseases. “Researchers conclude that inactivity is causing 5.3 million deaths per year,” according to the journal’s summary. “Further, this is very similar to the number of deaths attributed [by the World Health Organization] to tobacco smoking, and one of the papers in this series calculated the population attributable risk to be very similar for tobacco and inactivity.”

According to Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, “a growing body of evidence indicates that children need far more activity, including unstructured play, to improve health, cognition and emotional well-being. ...Continue Reading