First, an article on how French women manage to "age gracefully:"
From:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/15/fashi ... f=homepage
Next, an article on how being sedentary is bad in and of itself and you can't quite erase its ill effects by subsequent activity. You have to be less sedentary. This is a fascinating article, it's hard to pick out just a few choice quotes, but I'll try (do yourself a favor and read the whole thing):Not that they exercise. When my husband and I arrived in Paris and asked our personal banker — everyone has one — for a gym recommendation, her response was: “Why? Gyms are a form of torture.†It seems the only acceptable way to burn calories is to walk.
From:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/1 ... ef=general
In a study published in May in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, they reported that, to no one’s surprise, the men who sat the most had the greatest risk of heart problems... What was unexpected was that many of the men who sat long hours and developed heart problems also exercised. Quite a few of them said they did so regularly and led active lifestyles. The men worked out, then sat in cars and in front of televisions for hours, and their risk of heart disease soared, despite the exercise. Their workouts did not counteract the ill effects of sitting.
Decades ago, before the advent of computers, plasma TVs and Roombas, people spent more time completing ‘‘light-intensity activities,’’ which require between one and a half and three METs***. Most ‘‘home activities,’’ like mopping, cooking and changing light bulbs, demand between two and three METs. ... Nowadays, few of us accumulate much light-intensity activity. We’ve replaced those hours with sitting.
We are, in a phrase adopted by physiologists, ‘‘active couch potatoes.’’
Regular workout sessions do not appear to fully undo the effects of prolonged sitting. ‘‘There seem to be different pathways’’ involved in the beneficial physiological effects of exercising and the deleterious impacts of sitting, says Tatiana Warren, a graduate student in exercise science at the University of South Carolina and the lead author of the study of men who sat too much. ‘‘One does not undo the other,’’ she says.
You can, however, ameliorate the dangers of inactivity with several easy steps — actual steps. ‘‘Look for ways to decrease physical inactivity,’’ Ms. Warren says, beyond 30-minute bouts of jogging or structured exercise. Stand up. Pace around your office. Get off the couch and grab a mop or change a light bulb the next time you watch ‘‘Dancing With the Stars.’’
Reinhard*** A MET, or metabolic equivalent of task, is a measure of energy, with one MET being the amount of energy you burn lying down for one minute.