1 . The rate of childhood obesity in the U. S. has tripled over the past 50 years. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) made waves this year by recommending that doctors put obese kids as young as two years old on intensive, family-oriented lifestyle and behavior plans. It also suggested prescribing weight-loss drugs to children l2 and older and surgery to teens 13 and older. This advice reflects the organization’s adoption of a more active position on childhood obesity.

Yet the lifestyle programs the AAP recommends are expensive, inaccessible to most children and hard to maintain. Few weight-loss drugs have been approved for children. And surgery has potential risks and few long-term safety data. Furthermore, it’s not clear whether interventions in youngsters help to improve health or merely add to the psychological burden overweight kids face from the society.

Rather than paying close attention to numbers on a scale, the U. S. and countries with similar trends should focus on an underlying truth: we need to invest in more and safer places for children to play where they can move and run around, climb and jump, ride and skate.

Why is it so hard to get kids moving? Experts blame the problem on the privatization of sports — as public investment in school-based athletics dwindles, expensive private leagues have grown, leaving many kids out. In addition to fewer opportunities at school, researchers cite increased screen time and a lack of safe places for them to play outside the home. New York City, for example, had 2,067 public playgrounds as of 2019 — a very small amount for its large population. In Los Angeles in 2015, only 33 percent of youths lived within walking distance of a park.

Kids everywhere need more places to play. Public funding to build and keep up these areas is crucial, but other options such as shared-use agreements can make unused spaces available to the public. These opportunities aren’t primarily about changing children’s waistlines — they’re how we keep childhood healthy and fun.

2 . Discover the Huge Health Benefits of Strength Training

One of the best ways to stay fit and healthy as you age is to do strength and power training exercises. It is known that when you are in your thirties, you will begin to lose muscle mass. This loss actually contributes to achy joints, the increased risk of injury, and the “middle-age spread” we all fear. What’s more, the older you get, the faster muscle mass loses. It means that eventually, simple tasks like getting out of a chair and climbing stairs can become more difficult.

Strength training can help you build muscles, make you strong, increase your staying power and make everyday activities easier. By combining strength and power training exercises, you’ll not only get stronger, but also improve your reaction speed. As you grow older, that’s critical because it can help prevent falls. Here is a book, Strength and Power Training for All Ages, for your reference.

·The key muscles to work for an injury-free body

·How to tell how much weight is suitable for you

·How to strengthen the bones most likely to break

·How to take pressure off your knees when walking or running

·Why you’ll want to apply heat to sore joints before you exercise

·Build bones

·Fight diseases

·Improve balance

·Strengthen muscles &Increase muscle power

Get a copy, start training, and then you’ll discover a whole new self.

3 . We all want to keep fit and stay healthy, but a few things may prevent it: laziness, a busy schedule, and maybe even a limited spend.     1    . You can even make a bit of money on a few of these activities.

Babysit.

If you have your own kids, you’ll probably agree that looking after kids can help keep you fit. If you don’t, you can experience the wonderful world of toddlerhood by volunteering or signing up for a babysitting job. The best ages to babysit are those toddler years (2 through 5). Why?     2    .

Care for your yard.

    3    . Work on your yard all year long and you’ll have more than your heart going — best exercise of all is to push that lawnmower (除草机) around especially if you have a large lawn. Or even better, put in your own waste water system. All that digging should be great for upper body strength and patience.

    4    .

Have you checked your storeroom, basement and kitchen lately? Well, moving small items from their storage areas and turning them into boxes for sale, donation pick-ups or just further storage will get your blood exciting. Even just pushing around a dust cleaner, or sweeping your garage floor should oil your joints (关节).

Use someone else’s sports or exercise equipment (设备).

Have you checked under your bed lately? All around the nation, there is a flood of unused exercise equipment sitting around in garages and hiding in spare rooms and basements.     5    — if not at your own home, they could be sitting somewhere in a friend’s or relative’s home, sadly unused. It may be a good idea to reuse them.

5 . Top running routes in the USA

Holidays for some people are all about relaxing on the beach but for others, it’s important to be out and about. Walking and running holidays allow travellers to explore the beauty of a country and get plenty of fresh air without spending too much money. Here are some of the most beautiful running routes (路线) in the USA — you may want to give these a go.

An area favoured by athletes from all over the world, Mammoth Lakes offers amazing views and plenty of trails (小路) along with a healthy running community for active travellers to explore. Well-known track coaches Joe Vigil and Bob Larsen brought marathon superstars to the area in 2001 and ever since, it has trained 12 Olympians who have earned two Olympic medals as well as three major marathon wins.

Perfect for runners who like a bit of variety on their route, the Three Rivers Heritage Trail offers 24 miles of path going through a number of neighbourhoods, popular shopping and entertainment districts (娱乐区) and green space providing the perfect guide to the city on two feet.

Naples is well-known for its high-end shopping, world-class culture and high-class dining. The best running trail is along Gulf Shore Boulevard and Gordon Road, with views of the white sandy beaches and water, and some of Naples boutique hotels and holiday homes.

The Barr Trail is a trail that began as a way to enter mining (采矿) areas on Pikes Peak and later developed into a tourist trail. It starts in Manitou Springs, a little tourist town just west of The Springs, and climbs to the top of Pikes Peak in about 12 miles and 7,400 feet of vertical (垂直的) gain. This is not an easy route so be sure to pack the right supplies and rest when you need to.

8 . Fitness and exercise play an important role in the development and education of students.     1     It also helps improve their attention both inside the classroom as well as when learning at home.

    2     Keeping active on a regular basis can help sharpen a student’s attention and memory, helping him/her become more attentive in the classroom and improving recall (记忆力) of what he/she has been taught.

It’s easy for students to get frustrated or distracted (沮丧或分心) when they are sitting doing schoolwork for long periods of time.     3     So students can get up to stretch and clear their minds before getting back to work. Even a 5-minute walk around the house can help make a difference.

Choose a night during the week when the entire family spends time together doing something active. Taking a walk around the block, riding your bikes, or playing in the park are all activities that will help keep your family active while also having fun.     4     Make sure everyone gets a chance to choose something they want to do.

Organized sports like soccer are a great way for students to get the exercise they need while learning other skills like communication.     5     They will be excited to be participating in an activity they find fun and interesting, so getting that important exercise is something they will look forward to.

9 . Sportsmen in the running races of the Olympics are great athletes, but even the slow runners of the running world — joggers in the park — have good health. A study out this week in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology finds that even 5 to 10 minutes a day of slow running is enough to extend life by several years, compared with not running at all.

The new study focused on a group of more than 55, 000 men and women aged 18 to 100. About a quarter of them were runners. Over 15 years, those who ran just 50 minutes a week or fewer at a slow speed were less likely to die from either cardiovascular (心血管的) disease or other causes, compared with those who didn’t run at all.

The study suggests relatively low efforts are necessary to benefit from jogging, but it can be better to exercise more often. “A little bit is good but a little more is probably better,” says Dr. Aaron Baggish. A 2013 study in Denmark suggested that the secret of maximum longevity is up to 2. 5 hours of running a week.

Although running can make you less likely to have cardiovascular disease, it doesn’t entirely take the risk away from you. “There is no question that the healthier you are and the more exercise you do, the longer you’ll live and the better your quality of life will be,” Dr. Baggish says. “But it doesn’t mean you’ll never get sick.”

“Many long-term runners do not run because they want to live longer,” Dr. Baggish notes. “They run because it makes them feel better every day.”

For these runners, the cost of feeling good can be injuries, so Dr. Baggish supports the value of what he calls “active rest.” His belief, not supported by any recent research, is that it’s a good idea to spend 25% of exercise time over the course of a year running at a slow speed or doing other activities like swimming or biking.

10 . A new study has finally solved the problem of whether to eat breakfast before you exercise.

Researchers at the universities of Bath, Birmingham, Newcastle, and Stirling analysed the energy consumption of 12 healthy physically active men between the ages of 20 and 26. Each of the men completed three different trials: eating a breakfast of rice and milk and then resting (no exercise), eating the same breakfast two hours before cycling for 60 minutes, and finally not eating breakfast completely before doing the same 60 minutes of exercise. The study showed that fasted exercise (禁食运动) is the best for weight loss.

“These results suggest that for healthy young men a short-term energy lack may be more easily got if breakfast is worked off before exercise,” the study’s authors concluded. Here’s how it works: when you work out on an empty stomach, your body doesn’t have ready energy from food so it draws from other sources, like stored body fat, which makes your exercise more effective at burning fat—and helping you lose weight.

Additionally, exercising in a fasted state keeps your insulin (胰岛素) levels low, allowing your body to produce more growth insulin which also burns fat. “When insulin is rising—as is the case after you eat—your body will be in a state of wanting to store fat, not burn it,” Phoenyx Austin, MD, a sports medicine specialist, explained to MindBodyGreen. “It doesn’t matter if you exercise like a mad man after a meal. You won’t be able to burn body fat until insulin levels drop, which can typically take two or three hours, if not longer.”

But if you prefer eating breakfast before you exercise, don’t worry—there are benefits to be there, too. For instance, the researchers found that the men who ate breakfast first burned more carbohydrates(碳水化合物) while they worked out and sped up their metabolism(新陈代谢) for later on in the day.