Finns Give Us A Cold In Exercise Stakes

Newcastle Herald

Tuesday May 11, 2004

Half the people who start exercising will drop out within six months. The challenge is to be active and stay active.

WE know exercise is good for us, but how can people be encouraged to do more?

Most Australians do little or no exercise despite several decades of warnings about the dangers of inactive lifestyles.

Getting people to do more exercise involves tailoring the program to suit complex lifestyles and an increased awareness of the personal rewards used to gauge success.

Convincing scientific evidence shows that regular exercisers live longer and suffer less from heart disease, diabetes and colon cancer.

Exercisers have greater independence and increased quality of life as they grow old.

Yet with about 70per cent of the adult population reporting that they know they should be more active, more than 60per cent of the population do no regular exercise.

In Australia the weather can't be the excuse because Finland, despite its freezing winters, has one of the highest rates of physical activity participation in the world.

Ninety-two per cent of the Finnish population exercises, with many people doing exercise on top of already physically demanding labouring or farming jobs.

It's not because they are members of gyms and sporting clubs; the answer in Finland is that most people walk, cycle or cross-country ski either to get to work or for enjoyment.

There are many reasons why so many Australians fail to engage in enough physical activity to ward off premature disease and disability.

One belief is that physical activity patterns are established in childhood and adolescence.

Once the skills, enjoyment and fitness levels have been gained in these younger years, higher participation might be observed later.

Children with the highest enthusiasm and ``energy levels" for sport, as assessed by their teachers, have turned out to be the best exercisers in adult life.

This demonstrates the importance of kids having fun while being active.

The inactive middle-aged person of today was generally raised in an era when energetically demanding jobs were common and the range of physically active leisure- time pursuits was limited.

Children today are raised in an environment of reduced physical activity and increased choices and engagement (television, computer games and the internet).

This generation will present new challenges when it comes to finding ways to increase the physical activity levels of the population.

Getting people to begin exercising is an important problem that must be addressed. The second challenge is keeping these people active.

One half of people who start exercising will drop out within six months. Getting active and staying active are different tasks and researchers are grappling with ways to promote staying active.

The key ingredients are individualised programs, flexibility and choice of activities.

Exercise scientists are also beginning to appreciate more fully that people are more likely to become and stay active if the program is enjoyable and leads to a valuable outcome.

Most people report increased self-esteem as the most valuable outcome of increased exercise.

To be active and stay active, it is important that whatever exercise is chosen should be enjoyable and tailored to fit your unique lifestyle.

Adapted from Health Reader, Volume 9, No 5, June 2003.

Article supplied by The Forum Sports and Aquatic Centre at the University of Newcastle.

www.newcastle.edu.au/sport

Phone: 49217001