Exercise
Exercise keeps your body and mind both strong and healthy. Regular exercise has been shown to combat diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, depression, help control weight, and even help students do better in school. However, studies show that around 80% of Americans don't meet government physical activity guidelines and 25%-35% of Americans live a completely sedentary life-style, which means they have a sedentary job, do no exercise outside of work, and are generally inactive in their homes. This common life style is not good for Americans. An inactive lifestyle leads to increased risk for hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, depression, obesity, cancer, and early death. In fact, the article "Sedentary Lives Can Be Deadly: Physical Inactivity Poses Greatest Health Risk To Americans, Expert Says" states that " One follow-up study[,studying the correlation between fitness level and mortality,] of 40,842 longitudinal study participants showed poor fitness level accounted for about 16 percent of all deaths in both men and women,". Clearly, physical inactivity is a problem that needs to be addressed. We need to get Americans to start exercising. Fortunately, no matter how inactive you were before, it's never too late to start exercising and being a healthier person
How much you should exercise each day depends on your age. Children and adolescents should do at least 60 minutes or more of physical activity daily. Most of the 60 minutes should be moderate to vigorous exercise. Children should also do muscle and bone strengthening exercises at least 3 days a week as part of their 60 minutes of exercise. Of course you shouldn't force children to do boring repetitive exercises, children should get their fill of exercise from playing fun sports and games. Adults, in order to get substantial health benefits from exercise, should do 150 min of moderate aerobic exercise a week, or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise. Preferably this exercise should be spread across the week, performed in episode of about 10 minutes or so. For more extensive health benefits, adults should do moderate to vigorous exercise 300 minutes per week. The more exercise the better. Adults should also engage in muscle-strengthening exercises that involves all major muscles groups a least twice a week to keep muscles in good shape.
Even if you don't have the time to do this much exercise, you should do your best to avoid inactivity. Even just doing household chores every day can improve your health. Doing any physical activity is better than doing none, so be sure to do anything you can to get some exercise.