January 2, 2006
In the December 21, 2005 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Mercedes Carnethon from Northwestern University reports that, while the level of fitness among all Americans is relatively low, poor physical fitness is even more common among adolescents than among adults.
Dr. Carnethon analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, taken between 1999 and 2002, in order to compare fitness levels in two groups of Americans - adolescents between ages 12 and 19, and young adults from 20 to 29. She found that over one-third (33.6%) of the adolescents scored into the "low" cardiorespiratory fitness category, while "only" 13.9% of the adults had low fitness levels. Furthermore, individuals with low fitness scores also had lots of other risk factors for premature cardiac disease, such as high LDL cholesterol and low HDL cholesterol, systolic and diastolic blood pressure elevation, and obesity.
DrRich Comments:
Parents, what are you doing? We've known that young Americans have been getting fatter for the past decade or two. We have recently begun to see type 2 diabetes in adolescents, a disorder previously unheard of in pre-adults. Until now we could tell ourselves that this is merely a reflection of the general obesity epidemic in America. But now, astoundingly, this new report tells us that adolescent Americans are even more out of shape than the adults! Whatever this is due to - video games, the Internet, digital TV - we've got to figure out how to reverse it.
You don't need to be altruistic - i.e., distressed and saddened about the future health of all these young Americans - to understand why this is a huge problem. Even from a purely selfish perspective it's a vitally important issue. Think about it - in 20 years you and I expect to be tooling around the countryside in our Winnebagos, while all the young adult workers have 50% of their paychecks confiscated to pay for our Social Security, Medicare, prescription drugs, and whatever other benefits the AARP can wheedle out of the Feds for us. We don't expect those young adults to be dead (or worse, collecting disability themselves) from cardiac disease. For our own good we need to get our kids off the couch and onto the playing fields. Our very retirements depend on it.
