The slogan of the WHO World Health Day 2018 is “health for all.” The idea of “health for all” aligns well with providing access to exercise to everyone. Exercise is a key part of a healthy body and lifestyle. Exercise really is about a long-term investment in your own health. Besides contributing to weight loss and overall sense of well being, you’ll save thousands on medical bills spent on lifestyle diseases such as diabetes.
How many physical benefits of exercise can you think of? There might be more than you thought: the physical benefits of exercise are numerous but include decreased falls, increased strength, reduce the risk of heart disease, and helps to maintain healthy bones and joints. In addition to the benefits, exercise has no negative side effects, what a great drug of choice!
The benefits of exercise are not just physical, but psychological as well. Exercise can help lower anxiety and depression. Exercise classes have an additional social aspect that can help with loneliness, which is prevalent in older adults. Health is not purely physical; the mental aspect is also essential. Exercise can help with both, but is often forgotten about, making it a vastly underutilized resource.
The importance of exercise cannot be understated. Exercise should be treated as a form of health care itself. Without access to appropriate exercise, older adults lack access to vital health care. With all the side effects of a sedentary lifestyle, active aging is necessary for the health of older adults. Thankfully, active aging through exercise can reverse a sedentary lifestyle.
As doctors begin to prescribe exercise as a preventative treatment, further cost efficient and effective exercise classes are needed. No matter who you are or what your situation, you should have access to exercise. This is a worldwide issue especially as unhealthy diets and sedentary lifestyles continue to increase. Exercise can begin to reverse this trend and improve the lives of people everywhere. Everyone deserves preventative healthcare. Everyone deserves exercise.
WHO defines health as a complete sense of physical, mental and social well being. And probably one thing that caters to all the above is exercise. Do it regularly and stay healthy. Happy World Health Day to everyone.