If you had to escape a burning building or pull your family out of a wrecked car, could you do it? That's the question explored in Fit to Live and it has people everywhere asking themselves, "could I do it"?
There are plenty of weight-loss and makeover reality shows out there, but the unique concept behind the Fit to Live TV special and companion book seems to have struck a chord with people needing a wake-up call about health and fitness.
Tara Parker-Pope, a Health and Wellness writer for the New York Times, can relate. In a blog entry from January 11, 2008, she writes,
"While this may sound far-fetched, I can personally attest that fitness counts in an emergency. On September 11, 2001, I was on the ninth floor of the World Financial Center, which was just across the street from the World Trade Center. After the second plane struck the Trade Center, my building was evacuated. A nine-floor descent doesn't sound like much, but my group was stuck behind a slow-moving overweight woman. It took what seemed like forever to get out, and it was truly frightening. The evacuation was far more challenging for the people several floors above us."
Surviving an emergency isn't the only reason to improve your fitness level. As we age, obesity greatly increases the risk of disabilities. In a post from November 15, 2007, Ms. Parker-Pope notes that a study by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that "obese people over age 60 are twice as likely to have some sort of disability as older people of normal weight." She quotes Dr. Peeke, who says "people need to rethink their reasons for exercise. While many exercise to manage weight or simply because they enjoy it, those who aren't regular exercisers need to assess their "functional" fitness to determine how prepared they are for aging."
So, now that you're convinced you need to move more, how do you easily incorporate fitness into your life? In the Fit to Live book, Dr. Peeke discusses the link between health and organization, noting "How are you going to shoot a couple of hoops with your son if you can't even find the basketball?" Ms. Parker-Pope explores the health effects of clutter in a New York Times article published January 1, 2008:
"Dr. Peeke says she often instructs patients trying to lose weight to at least create one clean and uncluttered place in their home. She also suggests keeping a gym bag with workout clothes and sneakers in an uncluttered area to make it easier to exercise. She recalls one patient whose garage was "a solid cube of clutter." The woman cleaned up her home and also lost about 50 pounds."
"It wasn't, at the end of the day, about her weight," Dr. Peeke said. "It was about uncluttering at multiple levels of her life."
