CHAPTER SEVEN: The Path to Better Health and a Longer Life
Canine Physical Fitness
According to the American Kennel Club, many dogs in the United States, like
their human companions, have become overweight due to poor nutrition and lack
of exercise. The solution to this problem is simple: First, feed
adult dogs one or two daily meals of pet food, not human table scraps.
Second, take your pet on scheduled daily exercise walks. Both humans and
animals alike will benefit.
“The mechanization of America, principally the invention of the elevator and
the motor car, has reduced the majority of its population to a sedentary
lifestyle. This lifestyle has a great deal to do with the development of
atherosclerosis ‑ the clogging up of arteries of the heart, brain, and kidneys ‑
the disease process that kills and cripples more people than all other disease
entities combined. What an irony that of our time that this scourge of
the human race is self‑inflicted.”
Dr. Albert A. Kattus 1974
The Workplace
For
white collar workers computers, and other digital information technology, are
now a necessary part of modern business life. For blue collar workers power
tools, robots, and powered industrial trucks such as forklifts have greatly
increased the productively of workers.
This means that all types of workers make more goods and services than
workers could in the past with much less physical effort in the same amount of
time.
However, physically fit workers are
always preferred by management and co-workers, over obese workers. Some
major businesses are now becoming aware of the financial benefits of
maintaining a healthy work force and are offering employee workplace company
health programs that promote healthy lifestyles that include the prevention and
cessation of smoking, as well as the promotion of a balanced diet and moderate
exercise program to help maintain employee health and reduce company health
care costs by cutting down on absenteeism, accidents, hospital admissions, and
other health care costs. Since these corporate fitness programs are now
growing at a steady rate, American education institutions need to incorporate
similar programs to prepare their students for future employment in an
increasingly health conscious workplace.
“If you don’t make time for exercise,
you’ll probably have to make time for illness.”
- Robin Sharma
It is an unwritten fact that a
physically fit graduate often has better chances of meaningful employment over
an equally qualified, but obese, graduate.
The best plan of action for obese students is not joining a fat
acceptance group. Instead of making irrational
excuses for their unhealthy food addiction, obese students must exercise, eats
healthy foods, to get in physical and mental shape.
For business owners, these are ideas
for creating and then maintaining a walking and/or biking program
If you own, manage, or work in a business of any size you will find that
scheduled weekly company-sponsored fitness walks can be a great way of
generating ideas sessions between management and employees, if everyone can
remember that they can walk, talk, listen, and think at the same time! A
fresh air, outdoors, walking and/or biking ideas session is generally much more
effective in creating alternative ideas than inside the artificial atmosphere
of an air-conditioned conference room that often seems to be more conducive to
sleep than thought.
“Leave all the afternoon for exercise
and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more
necessary because health is worth more than learning.”
- Thomas Jefferson
Moreover, promote employee physical fitness by encouraging muscle powered
commuting and lunch period exercise breaks. For example, buying bicycles,
building secure and inside bicycle racks, while providing showers for washing
up after such physical exercise will give your employees more options other
than driving. Office amenities, such as showers, prove that management
truly cares for their personnel and is useful in both attracting and retaining
experienced and skilled professionals.
“I walked a mile with Pleasure. She chatted all the way. But left
me none the wiser for all she had to say.”
“I walked a mile with Sorrow. And never a word said she. But, oh,
the things I learned from her. When Sorrow walked with me.”
- Robert Browning Hamilton
The simple truth is that healthy employees
are more productive, while having fewer medical problems than obese employees. This is the way reality is and no amount of whining
from infantile, greedy gluttons will ever change that reality.
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