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.read more
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.read more
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.read more
So maybe you don’t have time to go to Zumba class before work, or walk at lunch, or hit the gym for a cardio workout after 6. That doesn’t mean you can’t get a good workout in in between. Current thinking from the health and fitness world is that bursts of exercise as brief as 10 minutes can boost your cardio fitness. So if you’re wondering if these little things really can make a difference, yes, they can.read more
Jill Malley knows more about competition than she thinks. “You’re doing great,” she said over my shoulder as I pedaled hamsterlike on the stationary bike. Then, leaning in, she added confidentially, “You’ve gone farther than anyone I’ve seen so far.” Nothing like a well-timed stroke to keep a guy from dialing back the stationary bike just when he thinks he’s had all he can take of going nowhere fast.read more