Now kids can tell their teachers that if they don’t get outside to play tetherball or romp on the jungle gym, they could have a heart attack!
This helpful bit of fact-based guiltsuasion comes from a just-released study from the University of Buffalo that found that kids who walk to school and get other kinds of exercise throughout the day get less stressed during tests. Less stress means a reduced risk of high blood pressure, heart disease and other cardiovascular woes later in life.
It looked like a North Carolina beach except for one thing: The people were moving.
We just got back from five days at Brigantine Beach, which sits just north of Atlantic City, N.J., though the gulf between the two couldn’t be greater. Atlantic City is all about glitz and gambling, Brigantine Beach is about kicking back — and kicking in.
When I saw the flier tacked to the bulletin board at the neighborhood Starbucks, I had one question. So I jotted down the name and number of the local contact and gave her a call.
“This 545-mile, 16-day Murphy to Manteo run that the three of you are doing,” I asked Lisa Tew, who lives in Fuquay-Varina, “this is a relay, right?” The flier touted a bodacious event involving three women — Tew, who is 43, Shay Mendes, 39, and 32-year-old Kristy Tomicki — who planned to run from Murphy to Manteo, a distance of 545 miles, in just 16 days starting Sept. 6. Certainly it was a relay; otherwise, that would be 34 miles per person, per day. That’s like running a marathon and a third every day for 16 days straight.
This weekend, explore a swamp, paddle a lake, hang with the stars.
Coast
The 22-mile Dismal Swamp Canal runs south from the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia to the Albemarle Sound. It is the oldest continually operating man-made canal in the U.S., opening in 1805 after 12 years of construction. It’s longevity is especially impressive considering the vast majority of the nation’s great canals led brief lives, opening in the early 1800s only to be quickly rendered obsolete as railroads spread throughout the nation. In addition to its natural wonder, penetrating its vast namesake wetland, the canal is rich in human history.
How do you get a million couch potatoes off their sectionals and into their Sauconys?
That’s the challenge BeActive North Carolina is taking on the first of the year when it launches its “One Million, More Active, More Often” program.
Despite the fact it’s been around since 1991, you may not be familiar with BeActive NC. It was founded with a grant from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina with the goal of motivating Tarheels to move more. You may not have heard of them because they mostly work with the middleman, helping community agencies implement programs intended to get us moving. A tall ask in a state where nearly 50 percent of the kids and more than 50 percent of adults don’t get the minimum amount of physical activity they need. Those statistics — and the ripple effect in related medical costs, labor loss and reduced quality of life related to being overweight and in poor shape — are driving BeActive’s campaign to reach more people.