This is the second in an occasional series on seemingly small acts of physical activity that can, over time, have a surprising impact on your life. Last week GGNC looked at taking the stairs vs. the elevator. Today: Watching TV on an exo ball rather than hunkered down in a La-Z-Boy.
White Oak greenway stretch to close for two years
The good news: The long-awaited promise of being able to take a greenway from near downtown Raleigh to the heart of downtown Durham came a step closer to reality last week with the unofficial opening of the 4.6-mile Chatham County section of the American Tobacco Trail. It’s now possible to walk/run/bike/equestriate for 13.8 miles on the ATT south of I-40. The trail resumes on the north side of I-40, running from NC 54 north for 6.7 miles into downtown Durham. The only remaining stretch left on the ATT: about a mile and a half bridging the two sections, including a pedestrian bridge over I-40.
Fitness pioneer Fred Morrison
A pioneer of American fitness whose simple invention may have made more people healthy than any other device died Tuesday at his home in Utah. Walter Fredrick “Fred” Morrison, who was 90, invented the Frisbee.
Morrison first got the idea for a flying disc tossing tin cake pans on the beach with his wife, Lu. After serving in World War II as a pilot, he pursued his fascination with flying discs, selling a more aerodynamic version of the cake tin at county fairs and department stores. The public’s intrigue was piqued during the 1950s during the nation’s fascination with UFOs. Ever the entrepreneur, Morrison painted little portholes on his discs, creating a toy that not only was fun to throw and catch, but carried with it the prospect of little green men paying a visit. In 1957, Morrison sold the manufacturing and production rights to what he called the “Pluto Platter” to Wham-O Manufacturing.
Let’s Move the toddlers
Wondering what you can do as part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move program to stop the super-sizing of our kids? If you have preschoolers, you can do three things according to a study to be published in the March Pediatrics.
- Eat dinner as a family (at the table, not on TV trays assembled in front of the “Family Guy”).
- Make sure your preschooler gets at least 10.5 hours of sleep a night.
- Don’t let them have more than two hours of screen time a day.
According to a survey of parents of 8,550 4-year-olds, kids who adhered to the above three practices were 40 percent less likely to be obese than their slacker counterparts who sucked down their mac & cheese in front of a dusk-to-dawn Dora marathon.
Let’s Move
Yesterday, First Lady Michelle Obama revealed her — and the nation’s — plan for combating childhood obesity. It’s called, appropriately, Let’s Move. That the first lady has made this her top priority underscores how serious the matter of our kids’ ever-expanding waistlines has become: About one in three kids in this country are now overweight or obese (that number has tripled over the past three decades), health-care costs related to obesity run about $147 billion a year, this is the first generation in recorded history that stands to be less healthy than its parents. The stats go on.