To the Editor:
Re “Making Soldiers Fit to Fight, Without the Situps” (front page, Aug. 31):
We applaud the efforts of the Army for updating its training programs
with the realities of the 21st-century challenges in mind. For some two
decades, the fitness industry has been promoting the benefits of total
body and core training, and all Americans would be well served
incorporating such a program into their lives.
Obesity and inactivity are threatening our country’s security in a
number of ways, not just in the military. Fire and police departments
nationwide are experiencing similar problems. More on-duty firefighters
die today from heart attacks than from fire.
Last year, the Cambridge Health Alliance and researchers from Harvard
University and Boston University found that 77 percent of fire and
emergency medical technician trainees in Massachusetts were either
overweight or obese. And in Jackson, Miss., more than a third of the
Police Department applicants were not able to pass the initial physical
fitness test.
As the United States launches its first-ever National Childhood Obesity
Awareness Month in September, scientists say the problem may be even
more widespread than previously thought. Today, more than 23 million
children and teenagers (31.8 percent) ages 2 to 19 are overweight or
obese.
The best way to avoid these costly and frightening scenarios is, of
course, through prevention of bad eating habits and sedentary lifestyles
in the first place. These solutions are well documented and
multipronged: improving school lunches, limiting junk food, bringing
back daily physical education, and showing our kids the pleasures of
outdoor activities. Of course, that means the adults in the house need
to be believers as well.
Diane Salvatore
Editor in Chief, Prevention Magazine
New York, Sept. 1, 2010
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 