okansas.blogspot.com
Occassional thoughts about orienteering


Saturday, July 28, 2007

The American Lifestyle

 

Goran Andersson - well known O' trainer - talked about a study of the lifestyle of Swedish orienteers. (See Kondis.no for the story). A rough translation of a bit of the story:

Most of the training orienteers do is running and orienteering, but a lot of them also ski and bike. The pattern among orienteers is that they are phyisically active, have normal weight, don't smoke, and drink alcohol moderately. They train a minimum of 30 minutes, three times a week on average. Half of them train more.


Andersson makes some public policy recommendations. He thinks companies should get tax breaks for having wellness programs. He warns that...

The people of Scandinavia are just 10-15 years from living an American lifestyle.

Anderson doesn't define the American lifestyle...but, you get the idea.

Which brings up a very interesting study where researchers found that obesity seems to spread through social ties. I've just skimmed through the study, but it really looks interesting.

Network phenomena might be exploited to spread positive health behaviors....Smoking- and alcohol-cessation programs and weight-loss interventions that provide peer support — that is, that modify the person's social network — are more successful than those that do not....People are connected, and so their health is connected....The observation that people are embedded in social networks suggests that both bad and good behaviors might spread over a range of social ties.

This is both good news and bad news for someone who has lots of "social network" connections through reading orienteers' web pages. Maybe Tero's good behaviors are spread to those of us who read his page? Maybe I'm going to develop "gubbvader" because I look at Aspleaf's page on a daily basis?


Back to okansas.blogspot.com.

posted by Michael | 4:31 PM

1 comments


Comments:
Today is my last day as a smoker. I'm using the latest miracle drug for smoking cessation called Chantix . Instead of trying to wean me off nicotine, it makes my brain stop "appreciating" nicotine. The plan is that I start taking the pills a week before my target quit date, which I did, and I already noticed a difference. I've been smoking substantially fewer cigarettes each day. (I used to smoke almost exactly a pack a day.) http://www.chantixhome.com/
 
Post a Comment
March 2002April 2002May 2002June 2002July 2002August 2002September 2002October 2002November 2002December 2002January 2003February 2003March 2003April 2003May 2003June 2003July 2003August 2003September 2003October 2003November 2003December 2003January 2004February 2004March 2004April 2004May 2004June 2004July 2004August 2004September 2004October 2004November 2004December 2004January 2005February 2005March 2005April 2005May 2005June 2005July 2005August 2005September 2005October 2005November 2005December 2005January 2006February 2006March 2006April 2006May 2006June 2006July 2006August 2006September 2006October 2006November 2006December 2006January 2007February 2007March 2007April 2007May 2007June 2007July 2007August 2007September 2007October 2007November 2007December 2007January 2008February 2008March 2008April 2008May 2008June 2008July 2008August 2008September 2008October 2008November 2008December 2008January 2009February 2009March 2009April 2009May 2009June 2009July 2009August 2009September 2009October 2009November 2009December 2009January 2010February 2010March 2010April 2010May 2010June 2010July 2010August 2010September 2010October 2010November 2010December 2010January 2011February 2011March 2011April 2011May 2011June 2011July 2011August 2011September 2011October 2011November 2011December 2011January 2012February 2012March 2012April 2012May 2012June 2012July 2012August 2012September 2012October 2012November 2012December 2012January 2013March 2013April 2013May 2013July 2013September 2013
archives
links