“How Exercise May Help Protect Against Severe Covid-19” Comments
The New York Times posted an article, How Exercise May Help Protect Against Severe Covid-19, by Gretchen Reynolds. I enjoy her pieces, partly because she wrote the story I learned about burpees from that prompted my sidcha.
First I was going to comment only on my different way of looking at this characterization, “regular exercise—whether it’s going for a swim, walk, run or bike ride—can substantially lower our chances of becoming seriously ill if we do become infected.” That way characterizes not exercising as normal, a state that exercising improves. But it characterizes exercise as a change from normal.
Everyone is free to define normal how they want. I prefer seeing exercising as normal and not exercising causing disease. I see the two views as logically equivalent, but I find my way motivates exercising more.
How Much Exercise Is a Lot?
This passage prompted me to post:
The researchers grouped the men and women by workout routines, with the least active group exercising for 10 minutes or less most weeks; the most active for at least 150 minutes a week; and the somewhat-active group occupying the territory in between.
The “most active” exercised 150 minutes a week. That’s 2.5 hours in a week. The average American watches 5 hours of TV per day. The most active Americans in the study exercised in a week half the time the Average watches TV in a day. And it’s making them sick. It’s killing some.
It didn’t take much to constitute exercise: “they do intimate that regular exercise—whether it’s going for a swim, walk, run or bike ride—can substantially lower our chances of becoming seriously ill if we do become infected.” Walking would qualify.
The highest amount of exercise in this study was half per week what Americans watch per day. You can cue people lecturing me what everyone already knows, that some people are old, sick, and poor. Yes, and this article covered studies with 48,000 and 50,000 people. Not all of them were old, sick, or poor. Exercise doesn’t have to take any time or money. On the contrary, it creates them relative to not exercising by keeping us healthy.
It bears repeating: The highest amount of exercise in this study was half per week what Americans watch per day.
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