Physical Activity of Canadian Adults

The research article, Physical activity of Canadian adults: Accelerometer results from the 2007 to 2009 Canadian Health Measures Survey, was written by Rachel C. Colley, Didier Garriguet, Ian Janssen, Cora L. Craig, Janine Clarke and Mark S. Tremblay. This article describes levels of measured physical activity in Canadian adults by age, sex and body weight status. All the data were collected at 15 sites across Canada from March 2007 through February 2009 by Canadian Health Measures Survey(CHMS). In order to gathered those data, CHMS asked the respondents aged 20 to 79 years to wear an Actical accelerometer over their right hip on an elasticized belt during their waking hours for 7 days (see Table 1). The accelerometer measured and recorded time-stamped acceleration in all directions, steps accumulated per day, and indicating the intensity of physical activity – sedentary, light, moderate, and vigorous.

The main finding of the survey is that “15% of Canadian adults accumulate 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per week; 5% accumulate 150 minutes per week as at least 30 minutes of MVPA on 5 or more days a week. Males are more active than females and MVPA declines with increasing age and adiposity. Canadian adults are sedentary for approximately 9.5 hours per day (69% of waking hours). Men accumulate an average of 9,500 steps per day and women, 8,400 steps per day”(Colley, 2011). (see Table 2&3) One of the interesting part of the survey is that the authors used the data to compare to the US 2005-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES); it shows that 3% of Americans aged 20 to 59 years were accumulating at least 30 minutes of MVPA in 10 minutes bouts on 5out of 7 days, but CHMS data for the same age range show that the estimated prevalence is slightly higher in Canada.

 

Recently, the new World Health Organization(WHO) and Canadian health guidelines recommend that adults should engage in at least 150 minutes per week of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), accumulated in bouts lasting at least 10 minutes; the 150 minutes can be accumulated in a variety of ways, such as 30 minutes, 5 days a week. However, the result of this research reflects that the new physical activity recommendations did not successfully translated into practical messages to the public.

On the other hand, there are two limitations of using accelerometers as the measuring tool. Firstly, accelerometers cannot capture the non-step-based physical activities, such as swimming and cycling. Moreover, accelerometers do not measure the added energy expenditure associated with upper body movement such as weight-lifting, snowboarding, and walking up an incline.

Finally, my take home message is that we should have moderate-to-vigorous physical activity regularly. MVPA is associated with several health benefits; for example, it can reduce the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, some types of cancer, depression, stress and anxiety. Therefore, the more activity, the greater health you have.

Work Cited:

Colley, R. C., Garriguet, D., Janssen, I., Craig, C. L., Clarke, J., & Tremblay, M. S. (2011). Physical activity of Canadian adults: Accelerometer results from the 2007 to 2009 Canadian Health Measures Survey. Health Reports, 22(1), 7-14. Retrieved from EBSCOhost: http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=902b9dc9-ea1f-4ade-b339-1a9281bd93a7%40sessionmgr114&vid=2&hid=127

Weight Matter and Chronic Diseases

Obesity and overweight is a very challenging health issue in Canada, it can increase the risk of several chronic diseases, such as hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, osteoarthritis and certain types of cancer. According to a report done by Statistics Canada in 2009, 17.9% of Canadians aged 18 and older, roughly 4.4 million, reported height and weight that classified them as obese, virtually unchanged from 2008; however, from 2003 to 2009, obesity among men rose from 16.0% to 19.0%, and among women, from 14.5% to 16.7%. Moreover, 59.2% of Canadian men and 43.9% of women were in the category of overweight.¹ All the results were based on the guidelines of Body Mass Index (BMI), and it represents that chronic diseases is a contemporary big health issue which Canada is currently facing(see picture1).

 Picture1 
Source From: Statistics Canada, Overweight and obese adults (self-reported), 2009

In 2005, World Health Organization(WHO) published a report, calls Facing The Facts: The Impact of Chronic Disease in Canada, it states that chronic diseases are projected to account for 89% of all deaths in Canada(see picture2).²

 Picture2
Source From: WHO, Facing The Facts: The Impact of Chronic Disease in Canada

In addition, WHO agreed that overweight and obesity is the major cause of chronic diseases, and they predicted that the prevalence of overweight in Canada is expected to increase in both men and women over the next 10 years(see picture3).

 Picture3 
Source From: WHO, Facing The Facts: The Impact of Chronic Disease in Canada

According to the suggestion of WHO, healthy diet, regular physical activity and avoidance of tobacco products can effectively prevent at least 80% of premature heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes, and 40% of cancer. Therefore, if you don't want to suffer from those chronic diseases, you should have physical activities regularly, keep a balanced diet and get away from tobacco and alcohol; it is also the way to achieve and maintain a healthy weight.

Reference:

¹Statistics Canada, Overweight and obese adults (self-reported), 2009:

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-625-x/2010002/article/11255-eng.htm

²World Health Organization, Facing The Facts: The Impact of Chronic Disease in Canada, 2005. Available online:
http://www.who.int/chp/chronic_disease_report/media/CANADA.pdf

Health vs "Fat"

One of the major controversies in field of “healthy weight” is - Is it OK to be Fat?

Lots of researches proof that overweight is associated with health diseases. However, there are also lots of studies shows that the overweight people are not living shorter than the people who are in the category that we deem normal. In my opinion, I agree with the latter. As long as you are eating healthfully, exercising regularly and taking care of your own personal health, you are a healthy person despite you are listed as “overweight”.

First of all, we have to know what is BMI. “Adult Body Mass Index(BMI) is a way to determine whether your weight is a healthy one. For most people, BMI is a reliable indicator of body fatness. It is calculated based on your height and weight.”¹

• If your BMI is less than 18.5, it falls within the "underweight" range.
  
• If your BMI is 18.5 to 24.9, it falls within the "normal" or Healthy Weight range.
• If your BMI is 25.0 to 29.9, it falls within the "overweight" range.
• If your BMI is 30.0 or higher, it falls within the "obese" range.
  
  
  －CDCP (U.S.), Assessing Your Weight

According to a report done by the National Health Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), Clinical Guidelines on the Identification, Evaluation, and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity in Adults: The Evidence Report, "overweight" and "obese" increases the risks of getting coronary heart disease, diabetes, cancers(endometrial, breast, and colon), hypertension, dyslipidemiavels of triglycerides, stroke, liver and gallbladder disease, sleep apnea and respiratory problems, osteoarthritis, gynecological problems, etc.² In addition, there are dozen of researches and studies proofs that “obese” and “underweight” are associated with higher mortality rate.

On the other hand, "overwieght" doesn't equal to the enhancement of mortality; indeed, there are certain numbers of health specialists claim that the BMI standard have been set too low. From the 1950s to the recent time, there are lots of researches and studies showing that "overwieght" doesn't increase the mortality rate. According to a landmark report, The International Journal of Obesity, done by the researchers at the Cornell University and the National Center for Health Statistic in 1996, the relationship between BMI and mortality among both non-smoked men and women were U-shpaed; males in the BMI range of 23-29 are actually living the longest lives, and the females in the category of both normal and overweight shared the same death rate.³

In fact, all of us can be healthy, even though we are in the category of "overweight". It is all depends on our lifestyle. A healthy weight is about a lifestyle that includes healthy eating, regular exercises, and balancing the number of calories you consume.⁴ If we are eating healthfully and taking care of our own physical and mental health, each of us can be a healthy person. Although BMI is only a measurement, but we should still pay attention to it because we should keep in our mind that "obese" and "underweight" are equal to unhealthy.

Finally, I would like to share a Youtube video about the debate of this topic.

Direct Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrY2wkIl4Iw&feature=relmfu

References:

¹Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Healthy Weight - it's not a diet, it's a lifestyle: Assessing Your Weight:

http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/index.html

²NIH, NHLBI Obesity Education Initiative. Clinical Guidelines on the Identification, Evaluation, and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity in Adults. Available online:
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/obesity/ob_gdlns.pdf

³Gaesser GA. Thinner May Not Be Healthier. Big fat lies: The truth about your weight and your health, 2002, p97-98. Carlsbad, CA: Gurze Books.

⁴Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Healthy Weight - it's not a diet, it's a lifestyle: Introduction:

http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/index.html

About Credibility and What is a Healthy Weight Losing Style

Every time doing academic researches or acquiring general information, we have to ask ourselves a few questions. For example, What is the source? What is the date? Who is saying it? What evidences are provided? Is there any potential bias? Does it make sense? In this blog post, I will provide an instance that lacks credibility to answer those questions. As I stated before, the topic of my blog is related to healthy weight; therefore, I have found a website that devoted to my topic as an example.

HCGAnywhere.com (http://hcganywhere.com/) is a website that promotes and sells its product, which calls HCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin). However, if you take a look of the website, you will see there are several problems on this website.

The first problem you can find is on the introduction paragraph, What Is HCG?. According to the paragraph, HCG helps the body mobilize and burns its fat stores.¹; moreover, we can even see there is an image of a male doctor next to the paragraph. Now we have to ask a few questions: Who is saying it? Is he/she a doctor or scientist? The man who appears on the picture, is he a certificated doctor? If yes, why don't the website provide certain personal information about him such as name, educated level and job position?

 

Picture1: What Is HCG?

Secondly, in the short paragraph, The Science Behind HCG, it used a scientific evidence to guarantee that the use of HCG injections in the treatment of obesity is safe. However, the detail of the practice is missing, such as the numbers of patients and how many years Dr. Simeons dedicated to the research.

The third problem is that Dr. Simeons's study was done in 1954, and the website doesn't provide any current experimental result of it. Therefore, we should keep a question in mind: has Dr. Simeons's study stood the test of time?

 

 
Picture2: The Science Behind HCG

 
In addition, the website highlights that if we kept a low calories diet and used the injectable HCG, we could lose 30 pounds in 40 days with no exercise. Dose it make sense to you? If yes, would it be a healthy way to lose weight? Later, in this blog post I will discuss what is a healthy weight losing method by providing several credible sources.

 Picture3: Our Complete System Includes, Why HCG

The last problem is about the success story of Kevin Trudeau. The website claims that Kevin Trudeau lost 60 lbs in 90 days. As we saw on the top of the web page, Kevin Trudeau is the author of The Weight Loss Cure THEY Don't Want You To Know About. If we bought the HCG system, we can get his book for free. Obviously, there is a potential bias. The website uses Kevin Trudeau as a successful example because they are business partner.

 Picture4: Free Book With Purchase of HCG System

Picture5: The "success story" of Kevin Trudeau

In fact, "a healthy way to achieve and maintain a healthy weight isn't about short-term dietary changes. It's about a lifestyle that includes healthy eating, regular physical activity, and balancing the number of calories you consume with the number of calories your body uses."² A reasonable and healthy weight loss is 1–2 pounds per week.³ Even though it may take as long as 6 months to lose the weight, it will make it easier to keep the weight off. The HCG website says we could lose 30 pounds in 40 days with HCG injection and low calories diet, and no need of physical activities; however, it doesn't make any sense to me. Such HCG diet and medicine limit the nutritional intake, is unhealthy, and may fail in a long term.

In addition , I want to talk about what is a proper case study. The use of Kevin Trudeau's personal experience is a failure because there is a financial aim between HCG AnywhereTM and Kevin Trudeau. In the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.) official website, it provides a few success stories about healthy weight losing. The CDCP website provides the person's personal information, name, highest and current weight, height, time it took to lose the weight, years that has kept it off for. Indeed, in each case study, it is divided to certain parts: Strategies That Work For Me, How I Did It, Biggest Challenge, Maintaining the Weight Loss, The Biggest Thrill.⁴ The web page gives lots of the details on how they lose and how they maintain their weight. Even though they were in different weight losing situation, they were still quite similar to each other; they changed to new healthy lifestyle such as eating a healthy diet and increasing their physical activities level. Moreover, we can all see that there are no financial aim between CDCP and the case study objects. CDCP is a non-profit organization, so they won't gain profit by providing those success stories.

While doing research or browsing websites, we have to be skeptical because it is very important to distinguish between trustworthy sources and deceitful sources. Finally, I would like to share a Youtube video, which uploaded by Dr. Vincent Bellonzi. He is a chiropractor and a Certified Clinical Nutritionist. In his video, he suggested that having breakfast, lunch and dinner, getting enough sleep and doing physical activities regularly, are the only ways to stay at a healthy weight. He also emphasized that diet don't work because it fails in a long run; the only strategy is to find a lifestyle that would allow you to stay at a weight that is healthy for you.

Direct Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wubyw2Wq4x4

References:

¹HCG AnywhereTM:
http://hcganywhere.com/

²Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Healthy Weight - it's not a diet, it's a lifestyle: Introduction:

http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/index.html

³U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, AIM for a Healthy Weight, page 5. Available online:
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/obesity/aim_hwt.pdf

⁴Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Healthy Weight - it's not a diet, it's a lifestyle: Success Stories:

http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/success/index.html

About Me, My Blog and My Work

I'm currently a student of Simon Fraser University. Originally from Hong Kong, now I live in Vancouver. Personally, I'm quite concern about contemporary health issues such as mental health and balanced diet because those issues could fundamentally affect my entire life. That's also the reason why I decided to take Kinesiology140 in this semester. In order to know more about the contemporary health issues, our professor ask us to do some researches on a topic which we are interested in, and create a blog post afterward.

In my blog, I would like to explore one of the main contemporary health issues which is "healthy weight". Lots of people misunderstand the meaning of "healthy weight", and they usually put an equal sign between thin and healthy. However, a "healthy weight" is not just being not fat, but also related to balanced eating and regular exercise - this is also the main message about my topic. Therefore, If any of you is interested to know how to achieve, measure and maintain a healthy weight, please follow my blog. Any age, gender and nationality is welcomed.

I hope that I could learn the actual or in-depth meaning of "healthy weight" from doing these blog posts. Indeed, I wish my blog posts could convey certain educational information to the viewers.