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Importance of Physical Fitness for Aging Boomers As baby boomers approach their senior years, they are driving the issue of health and fitness to the fore of public discussion. A study reported in the Wall Street Journal suggests that exercise may be the closest thing we have to a fountain of youth. The importance of exercise and physical fitness is today one of the hottest topics for TV news, magazines, newspapers, and web sites. While this may be primarily attributed to rising obesity rates in the industrialized world, and to the concomitant preponderance of diet fads, there is another plausible reason for the trend. The vastness of the baby boomer generation has always forced their concerns to the fore of national dialogue and cultural consciousness; as they now approach their senior years, health becomes a governing issue for them – and the rest of the nation. Not long, ago, the Wall Street Journal reported on a study of five men and the effects of inactivity versus age on their bodies. In 1966, the men – then 20-year-old college students – volunteered to stay in bed for 20 days straight and then engage in vigorous exercise. About thirty years later, as fifty-year-olds with fitness levels typical for their age, they were once again asked to undertake intense physical activity. The findings were quite arresting: aerobic capacity was more severely diminished by the period of bed rest at age twenty than by three decades of aging in the intervening years. Senior fitness, it appears, may be quite attainable.The study involved the VO2 max measure, a standard means of gauging the body's ability to utilize oxygen when it is under maximum stress. Because oxygen is the molecule most central to our ability to generate energy and do physical work, the test is a reliable indicator of cardiovascular fitness. Each of the five men gained at least twenty pounds over the period between the two tests; a couple gained significantly more than that. As part of the study, they then stuck to a six-month aerobic exercise program designed to increase cardiovascular capacity. Afterwards, all achieved VO2 max results equivalent to their performance at age 20, pre-bed rest. While their explosive energy was almost certainly diminished from youth, their endurance was able to reach essentially the same level. We should take two crucial lessons from this study. One, a sedentary existence is extremely detrimental to health, and might be considered to have the effect of aging the body prematurely. The good news for baby boomers, seniors, and everyone else, is that embarking on a moderate but consistent program of physical activity can turn your health and fitness around, even if you do so in later life, after years of relative inactivity. Even a brisk, 20- or 30-minute walk, taken several times a week, can boost your aerobic capacity, perhaps beyond what it's been for years. If there is any such thing as a fountain of youth, it is regular exercise. Back To Mature Market News → Go To The GenerationTarget.com Mature Market Bookstore → |
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