So, what did you do first thing this Sunday morning? Have a cup of coffee? A bagel? Read the Sunday paper in your bathrobe and slippers?
Me? I dove into 15,000 gallons of ice water.
Technically, “ice water” may be pushing it. According to the duck, it was 65 degrees. To put that number in perspective, jump into the ocean during your summer beach vacation, then subtract 20 degrees. It’s a big difference, trust me.
Today, I’m going to camp. Just like with any camp, there’s a mix of nerves and excitement. Excited about learning new stuff. Nerves over performing in front of others. Nerves and excitement over meeting new people.
But this camp isn’t like the camps of summer’s way past, where new lanyard-weaving techniques were learned, where a mangled camp song solo was greeted with water balloons, where the older kids thought up devious pranks to pull on their underlings. This camp is the new approach to conferences, where top down is turned on its ear and the participants vote on what they want to discuss and learn about. Within a topical framework, of course, which for today’s camp is three rapidly emerging areas of health care: mobile health, telemedicine and social health.
Have trouble prying your kids from the computer screen to go for a bike ride or play in the yard? There’s an app for that. Or there will be if enough enterprising programmers heed the Apps for Healthy Kids competition being sponsored by First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! program.
“Don’t look at it as, ‘Here’s where I am,’” Lesley Richmond tells me. “Look at it as, ‘Here’s where I need to be.”
Lesley has had to quickly slip into fitness grief counselor mode after I’ve learned that I am a 175-pound weakling. After trying to squeeze the life out of a hand-held strength measurement device for 15 seconds, the device has laughed in my face (is that sand in my eyes?) and dubbed me “below average” when it comes to “muscular strength.”
“But I do strength training!” I plead in what even I recognize as a pathetic suggestion that the device can’t possibly be right. Even more pathetic: The hordes of other folks doing this five-point fitness assessment offered for free by Be Active North Carolina are taking far worse news with far more grace.
Be Active NC is a non-profit founded in 1991 by Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. Its goal: to get North Carolinians off the bench and into the game. It tries to reintroduce the concept of physical activity into the public schools with its Just Push Play and Energizers programs. It tries to get inactive adults moving with its Be Active Steps program, which encourages folks to walk the recommended minimum of 10,000 steps a day by giving them a pedometer and place to log their walks. It goes after seniors with its array of Be Active Aging programs. And it goes after everyone across the state with its Be Active Van, which goes everywhere from the Lexington Barbecue Festival to the North Carolina Pickle Festival to let people like me discover not where they are, but rather where they need to be.
Assorted news from the research world to get your week kick started:
Green exercise? Really pressed for time? Is carving out 60 minutes a day to work out, as recommended by the National Institutes of Health, beyond the pale of your schedule? Even 30 minutes broken into bite-size 10-minute segments isn’t doable? According to a study in the current issue of the American Chemical Society’s “Environmental Science & Technology” journal, just five minutes of “green” exercise a day can improve your health — your mental health, at least. Study authors Jules Pretty and Jo Barton say 10 studies involving 1,252 people in the United Kingdom found that just five minutes of gardening, hiking or other pursuits in a green setting decreases your risk of mental illness and improves your sense of well-being. Read more here.