Spring Break
A healthier distraction, please?
Young adult health still shows no improvement
Jason Wallace
Issue date: 2/26/09 Section: Opinion
With the Internet, we can keep in touch with distant loved ones and friends more easily with online text, pictures and video. We can read the new editions of The New York Times and The East Carolinian when they are published. We can shop better and more economically. Despite these adaptations to our fast-paced lives, these habits are also making us soft around the middle.
An article in USA Today said the health of American young adults, between the ages of 18 and 29, has not improved in the past 10 to 15 years. Within the past 15 years, the face of electronic entertainment and communication has also changed. There are numerous reasons that try to explain why young adults' health has been static for several years, but the increasing dependency and addiction to sedentary activities is one of the major contributing factors.
Harris Teeter and other grocery stores now allow a shopper to go to the store's Web site, order the groceries and let the store shop for the items. All the shopper has to do is drive up and someone will load the grocery bags into the trunk. I can see how this service works well for those in a hurry or physically unable to shop in a store, but a long enough grocery list could easily produce a half mile walk, which is an easy way to get exercise.
It feels like almost anything can be processed through a Web site and mailed to the front door. Ordering items to the house isn't new, but if I feel confident that the clothes I'm looking at online will fit me just right, then I won't have to go to the store.
The other halt to young adults' health improvements is our obsession with being entertained through video games. If video games had not advanced past Mario and Sonic, then we would have probably moved on -- like we outgrew our toys. As we have grown and matured, so have the themes and content in the games. Video games have advanced from simple "move from point A to point B" tasks to involving more interactive game play and feature-length movies. The characters have grown up from being two-dimensional and cartoon-ish to living and breathing human beings. The attraction of following the stories of these characters in games like "Gears of War" and the "Resident Evil" series is similar to following ongoing plots in a television program. Unlike a television program -- which ends at a certain time -- the game can be played whenever. A game that has 50 hours of game play can easily sneak into those open pockets of time during the week that could have been used for physical activity.
Overall, these two limitations in health improvement only exist because they are easy. No one has to stress out about driving to a store and dealing with everything that goes on inside. Anyone can play a video game right now.
If a person who is accustomed to these stationary, time-consuming activities wants to maintain good health, then a counter measure to easy living is required.
This writer can be contacted at opinion@theeastcarolinian.com.
An article in USA Today said the health of American young adults, between the ages of 18 and 29, has not improved in the past 10 to 15 years. Within the past 15 years, the face of electronic entertainment and communication has also changed. There are numerous reasons that try to explain why young adults' health has been static for several years, but the increasing dependency and addiction to sedentary activities is one of the major contributing factors.
Harris Teeter and other grocery stores now allow a shopper to go to the store's Web site, order the groceries and let the store shop for the items. All the shopper has to do is drive up and someone will load the grocery bags into the trunk. I can see how this service works well for those in a hurry or physically unable to shop in a store, but a long enough grocery list could easily produce a half mile walk, which is an easy way to get exercise.
It feels like almost anything can be processed through a Web site and mailed to the front door. Ordering items to the house isn't new, but if I feel confident that the clothes I'm looking at online will fit me just right, then I won't have to go to the store.
The other halt to young adults' health improvements is our obsession with being entertained through video games. If video games had not advanced past Mario and Sonic, then we would have probably moved on -- like we outgrew our toys. As we have grown and matured, so have the themes and content in the games. Video games have advanced from simple "move from point A to point B" tasks to involving more interactive game play and feature-length movies. The characters have grown up from being two-dimensional and cartoon-ish to living and breathing human beings. The attraction of following the stories of these characters in games like "Gears of War" and the "Resident Evil" series is similar to following ongoing plots in a television program. Unlike a television program -- which ends at a certain time -- the game can be played whenever. A game that has 50 hours of game play can easily sneak into those open pockets of time during the week that could have been used for physical activity.
Overall, these two limitations in health improvement only exist because they are easy. No one has to stress out about driving to a store and dealing with everything that goes on inside. Anyone can play a video game right now.
If a person who is accustomed to these stationary, time-consuming activities wants to maintain good health, then a counter measure to easy living is required.
This writer can be contacted at opinion@theeastcarolinian.com.
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