How
to be healthy? Any sports enthusiast will tell you to exercise. Not just any
exercise, but those rigorous, heart-pumping cardio. Recently, in a Malaysian
Internet forum, a guy dismissed walking as “useless”.
In
the West, some fitness experts pointed out that yoga is ineffective for weight
loss, since it doesn’t burn as much calorie as running or spinning. But they are unable to explain why long term yoga practitioners tend to have lean
figures.
Which
makes me wonder: Does fitness equal
health?
Okinawa
in Japan has some of the longest living people in the world. Scholars attribute
the long life expectancy of the Okinawans to their diet and active style.
However, I doubt many of them still do karate fighting at the age of 80.
Hong
Kong is another place with very high life expectancy, and scholars attribute it
to the fact that Hongkongest walk a lot. Unlike Malaysians and Americans who
are terribly car-dependent, Hong Kong people often ride train (MTR). However,
walking to and fro the MTR station is not cardio exercise. Taichi is popular in
this Southern Chinese city, but again it is not a cardio exercise. (Taichi does
have some “fast forms”, which are rigorous, but they are not commonly practiced.)
(source: discoverhongkong.com)
Fitness
is essentially a Western concept. There is no Chinese translation for the English
word ‘fit’.
Fitness
is external; health is internal. Fitness is generally associated with physical
exercise, such as running, swimming and weight lifting; health is related to
many more factors, such as diet, nutrition, therapy and mental wellness.
American
researchers recently compared data from two studies of 33,060 runners and
15,045 walkers. Their findings could surprise many of us. Results showed:
The risk for first-time hypertension was reduced 4.2% by running and 7.2% by walking.
The risk for
first-time high cholesterol was reduced 4.3% by running and 7% by walking.
The risk for
first-time diabetes was lowered 12.1% by running and 12.3% by walking.
The risk for coronary
heart disease was lowered 4.5% by running and 9.3% by walking.
(source)
So,
would you say “walking is useless”?
