May is National Physical Fitness and Sports Month. Started by the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition in 1983, this advocacy month is aimed at encouraging Americans to adopt healthy lifestyles.
Throughout the year, the council promotes resources and initiatives on eating healthy and staying active, including exercise and nutrition guidelines, school breakfast programs, the Let's Move! campaign and the #0to60 campaign to increase physical activity. It's #MoveinMay campaign provides a special opportunity to highlight healthy living, and to help raise awareness, we'll be highlighting tips and facts from GWSPH professors throughout the month!
Be sure to follow along @GWpublichealth on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and check back here for a compilation of the tips and facts that we'll be sharing:
- Did you know that aerobic exercise alone leads to only modest losses in body weight? Exercise programs for improving body composition should include both aerobic exercise and strength training, says Associate Professor Todd Miller.
- The President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition recommends getting off the bus or subway one stop early to work in extra steps.
- Relaxing school nutrition regulations is a step in the wrong directrion, wrote Sumner M. Redstone Global Center for Prevention and Wellness Director William Dietz recently in the Huffington Post. "Only sound policies that address both nutrition and physical activity will sustain the momentum of recent progress made in childhood obesity rates, including a reduction in prevalence among 2-5 year old children, and a plateau in the prevalence of obesity among 6-11 year olds."
- According to CDC researchers, less than 15 percent of U.S. adults eat enough fruit to meet the daily federal recommendations. To work more fruit into your diet, #GWSPH Assistant Professor Allison Sylvetsky Meni recommends adding berries to yogurt and oatmeal or slicing and baking apples with cinnamon as a healthy treat.