UMass Magazine Online

Fall 2004

Departments

Around the Pond

Features

The Future's So Bright

The Prince of Pages

The Changing Face of Beauty

Campaigns: Good for What Ails Us?

Around the Pond

A Minute With: Patty Freedson
professor of exercise science




	Twelve-handicapper Patty Freedson prefers to get her daily dose of exercise on the golf course. She was recently awarded the Chancellor’s Medal, the highest honor awarded for service to the university. photo by Katy LoConte

How Much Exercise Is Enough?

“For maintaining good health and promoting disease prevention, experts widely agree that 30 minutes of accumulated moderate exercise most days of the week is what’s needed.” Some helpful definitions: “moderate exercise” is equal to a brisk walk. “Most” days of the week means six out of seven. And “accumulated” indicates that there’s no need to tackle all 30 minutes in one fell swoop. “We are built, biologically, to be active. It’s in our genes. We need to increase our energy expenditure at different points throughout the day,” explains Freedson.

The Institute of Medicine ( http://www.iom.edu/ ) uses different wording in its recommendation, “which is why people get confused,” says Freedson. “They prescribe 60 minutes of moderate exercise most days a week, but that’s for ‘weight loss and management,’ which makes sense. The more time you spend exercising, the more calories you’ll burn.”

The real problem, says Freedson, is that half of all Americans don’t meet the 30- minutes-a-day minimum. “The net effect of elevators and cars and other conveniences is that we are too sedentary. And that opens the door for disease, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease.” Health advocates look for ways to modify environments to make exercise easier, such as building more sidewalks and bike paths, and lining stairwells with artwork to make them more enticing than elevators. Says Freedson, “It’s all about getting people to make changes they’ll stick with.”

UMass Department of Excercise Science: http://www.umass.edu/sphhs/exsci/

[top of page]

Counting Sheep

Counting Sheep: larger image

Road Trip

Road Trip: more images

Kudos

Inspiring Achievements

Inspiring: more images

Basic Black

Basic Black: larger image

A Minute With: Patty Freedson

A Minute With: larger image

Last Words

Last Words: larger image

United We Stand

United: larger image

The Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series

Feinberg Lecture Series: more images