Get Moving!

Sunday, May. 29, 2005 By CLAUDIA WALLIS

PHOTO-ILLUSTRATION FOR TIME BY NEAL BROWN

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Americans didn't worry much about keeping fit 100 years ago. In those days 40% of the population was reaping and sowing, herding and mowing its way through life on preindustrial farms. In coastal cities, strong-shouldered stevedores were loading and unloading ships dawn to dusk without a container or stacking crane in sight. Builders, lumberjacks and railroad men drove nails or sawed wood with their muscles, not power tools. And for those doing the washing, cooking and scrubbing at home, life wasn't so dainty either. (Ever pick up one of those 8-lb. solid-metal weights that gave ironing its name?) In that bygone, sweat-drenched era, staying in shape just wasn't an issue. Indoor plumbing? Now that was an issue. Working out? Never heard of it. One can only imagine what time travelers from that strenuous era would make of modern-day Americans, sitting on their duffs most of the day—in the car, at the office, in school, on the sofa—eating like a stevedore and then driving to the fitness club to log a mile or so on a conveyer belt.

It just doesn't add up. Literally. The old energy-balance equation—calories in should equal calories out—is seriously out of whack, as the rising rates of obesity in the U.S. and other developed nations prove. For much of the past decade, public-health officials, doctors and the popular press (including this magazine) have focused on the intake side of the equation. We're eating too much fat, too many carbs, too much altogether.

But the problem is just as grave on the output side. We are not burning enough calories or moving our bodies enough to maintain good health. "We have two epidemics in this country. One is obesity, the other is physical inactivity," laments Dr. Tim Church, medical director of the Cooper Institute, a fitness research center in Dallas. "One is a topic of cocktail conversation and the focus of bestselling books. The other is ignored." In this 21-page special report on getting America fit, TIME aims to address that imbalance. Why should we be concerned about fitness? Because as bad as it is to be overweight, it may be just as bad to be inactive.

In fact, some health authorities believe it's worse. The health risks of obesity—diabetes, heart attack, high blood pressure and certain cancers, among others—are familiar to most Americans, but physical activity confers its own benefits "above and beyond what it can provide for weight control," says Harold Kohl, lead epidemiologist at the Physical Activity and Health Branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). How does exercise help us? Kohl is happy to count the ways.

To begin with, exercise works wonders for the heart: improving the lipid profile, reducing the risk of heart disease and restoring function after a heart attack. "It helps tremendously in maintaining bone health whether you are young or an older adult," he notes. In addition, it helps moderate blood pressure in people with hypertension, can significantly relieve depression and anxiety and appears to help maintain cognitive function in old age. Studies show that physical activity may also help prevent cancers of the breast and prostate, probably by influencing hormone levels, and of the colon, probably by keeping wastes moving along. Exercise seems to be so beneficial to cancer patients that oncologists have begun advising them to do their best to get moving. A study released last week showed that breast-cancer patients who walked three to five hours a week or did an equivalent amount of another exercise lived about 50% longer than those who were inactive. Why then has obesity hogged the limelight that physical activity also deserves? It's partly because being overweight is a more conspicuous problem. You can see it with your eyes, you can measure it on a scale.