December 2003
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A Matter of Health
Leading by example
By the first of December, my 27-year-old daughter was boasting that she could run 19 miles on her “long” run of the week and was well on her way to achieving the fitness she needs to finish the Houston marathon set for Jan.18, 2004.
She’s a member of a new generation that accepts exercise as a way of life. It was not that way when she was a teen-ager, mind you. She was happy to roast in the sun by a pool but definitely unwilling to swim laps. Her bicycle, once an important part of her life, rusted in the side yard when cars became the cool mode of transportation.
Early in her 20s, however, she began to run, and she could run forever, it seemed. Nine, 10 or 12 miles seemed like nothing to her. She and her father have ridden bicycles in two MS 150s, and now he’s a proponent of long-distance cycling. My son has taken up the exercise habit, riding a bicycle daily and lifting weights. My son-in-law was an athlete before he met my daughter, and he has continued to make fitness part of his life – even while engaged in the rigors of medical school.
Me? I’ve been in a slump lately, but I’m getting better. I jump on the stationery bicycle when I get a chance, and lately I’ve yearned for the feel of the wind on my face during a bicycle ride.
The women of my generation flexed their muscles in private. Our conditioning was not that different from that of our male counterparts. We were of that generation whose mothers were constantly say, “Why don’t you go out and play for a while?”
So we spent most of those hot summer days riding bicycles, playing tag, jumping rope and playing games. Fences did not subdivide our backyards. With grass growing in the alleys, the combination of three or four yards made a great softball field. Someone always had a badminton net strung up. Or there was croquet.
When we were tired, we had cold water and a hammock under a tree. Fifteen minutes there, and we were back up again. On occasion, we would troop to the municipal pool or even to the junior high school pool inside that opened during the summer.
You checked in with your mother occasionally, but she was not really worried. It was a small town, and you knew almost everyone. The streets were not busy, and kids relied on common sense.
Our children’s lives were more circumscribed. Air-conditioning lured them inside where they became couch potatoes and video game aficionados. Their hand-eye coordination was great, but they lacked the opportunity to run outside until the streetlights came on or to work out their differences in games that they played on their own. They went to camp where their activities were scripted, and much of them revolved around ‘hurry up and wait.’
I’m proud that my children are trying to make up for what was denied them in our fast-paced world. It takes time to train for a marathon, but the benefits are enormous. It takes time to run a marathon, but the achievement is one that stays with you for life. In a nation beset with an epidemic of obesity and inactivity, it’s time we all turned off the television set, pushed away from the dinner table and keyboard and got those muscles moving.
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Leading by example |