By Scott Bernarde
ATLANTA — If you're a Siberian reindeer herder, you probably get all the physical activity you need.
If you drive to an office and work eight hours a day, you probably don't.
Experts agree that physical activity is key to good health. But for many, the agreement ends there.
How much activity does a healthy body need?
Sixty minutes a day, according to a 2002 report by the National Academies' Institute of Medicine, which advises Congress on health issues.
Thirty minutes at least five times a week, says a 1996 edict from the U.S. surgeon general.
And anything is better than nothing in the battles with the bulge, according to many.
“You know what the public is probably thinking,” said Linda Otto, wellness director at the J.M. Tull YMCA in Lawrenceville, Ga., one of the busiest Y's in metro Atlanta. “ 'Hey, look, to do 30 minutes is hard enough. Now you're saying 60 minutes? You've got to be crazy.' People are confused, but they don't need to be.”
In September, the Institute of Medicine said that an hour's worth of moderate physical activity per day is needed to maintain a healthy body weight. That contradicted the widely accepted surgeon general's guideline and sparked a debate about just how much is enough.
The problem is that when people hear words like “moderate physical activity,” they frequently think “exercise.” There's a difference. Physical activity breaks a sweat; exercise pushes to a point just shy of breathlessness.
“We're not saying you have to go to the gym,” said Paula Trumbo, study director for the institute's report and a Ph.D. in nutrition and biochemistry. “It can be broken up walking 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there. Rather than driving around the parking lot looking for a closer parking spot, try parking at the end of the lot and walking.”
But some say the institute's findings are out of line, especially those who favor the surgeon general's report.
Tim Church, medical director at the Cooper Institute in Dallas, a leading health and fitness research center, called the latest report “a giant disservice” because it may have done more harm than good in pushing sedentary Americans off the couch. Some studies say that as much as 40 percent of the U.S. population gets little or no exercise at all.
“We're so obsessed with how overweight our nation is, we virtually ignore how sedentary we are,” said Church, who said inactive people with normal weight probably are not healthier than someone overweight who is active. The institute's “logic is if you can stop weight gain you'll be healthier. They're talking about weight gain and health on the same level.
“We have two epidemics in this country. One is obesity; the other is physical inactivity.”
Church said 30 minutes is “both sufficient and realistic,” adding that the Institute of Medicine could have prevented the confusion with a change in its wording to say “up to 60 minutes.”
For Ingrid Rainey, even an hour a day isn't enough, and the word ''moderate'' might apply only to her diet. The 28-year-old Alpharettan plans her day around hourlong workouts in the morning and evening. Her regimen includes six miles of running most days, 30 to 60 minutes of weight training, and plenty of time on the elliptical machine or treadmill, with the incline knob turned to 10.
And don't forget six days of ab work.
“Usually, I get people telling me they wish they could do it. I tell them all they have to do is want to do it and make time for it,” said Rainey, who sandwiches her workouts between running her software consulting company. “To me, 30 minutes isn't enough. It's got to be at least 60.”
Even the Institute of Medicine isn't suggesting that you work out like an Ironman triathlete. Sixty minutes of moderate physical exertion doesn't have to come all at once, and it can include such mundane activities as gardening, walking in your neighborhood or taking the stairs instead of the elevator. The benefits can include reducing your mortality risk, such as from heart disease.
Otto, of the Lawrenceville YMCA, has no problems with the institute's recommendation, especially with recent studies that lowered the standards for what is considered normal weight. But she believes the language was misleading, especially in the report summary, which cited walking or jogging at 4 to 5 mph as an example of moderate physical activity.
“For some people that's exercise, not physical activity,” said Otto, who for 18 years coordinated fitness programs for Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A.
So, then, back to the original question: How much is enough? It's hard to pin down, say experts, because every person's goal — and metabolism, for that matter — is different. The more pressing problem is finding the time, whether it's 30 minutes, 60 minutes or more. That's a well-documented dilemma in a world filled with time constraints, jobs that require workers to sit behind computers for hours at a time, and family obligations. Add to that supersize portions at mealtime.
“We're modern-day victims of our own evolutionary successes,” explained Bill Leonard, professor of biological anthropology at Northwestern University in Chicago. Leonard recently completed a study comparing the diets and energy expenditures of modern and traditional societies.
Siberian reindeer herders, for example, expend more calories per day than Americans do because their subsistence depends on physical activity. Americans are forced to create nonoccupational ways to burn excess calories. Increasing daily activity recommendations is a matter of evolution, Leonard said.
Terri Germann,45, also of Alpharetta, Ga., said she struggles to work out three to five times a week. She owns a technical writing firm and co-owns two others, and often decides not to go to the gym. What helps is working out with boyfriend Charles Rocha and varying how she exercises.
Rocha, 46, an electrical engineer, said he doesn't put much stock in recommendations like the Institute of Medicine's. When he's not training for a marathon — he ran one in Mobile last month, in 3 hours, 47 minutes — he's not killing himself at the gym.
“Sixty minutes, I don't buy it,” Rocha said. “It's just a guideline. You work with the guideline based on your own life. . . . When they recommended 20 minutes a day a while ago, I never bought into that either. Thirty-five to 45 minutes works for me.”
Rainey said that anybody can start an exercise routine, but working it in slowly has helped her build time and lose 35 pounds in two years. “You know,” she said, “you can watch that same [television] program on the elliptical machine, too.”
Scott Bernarde writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. | ||
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