Unit 1: Lecture

Health & Physical Fitness

What is ahead?
The two projects that you will do in this class involve both examination of wellness and behavioral changes. These projects will take a
significant amount of time and work. Several things can strongly influence the desire to make a change and the success of the
change. The individual must:

 Clearly associate the behavior with a particular health problem;

 Realize that the behavior makes them susceptible to the health problem;
 Realize that there are risk reduction strategies;
 Believe that benefits of the new behavior will be more reinforcing than the old behavior; and
 Feel that their significant other really wants them to alter their behavior.

Health

Many of us use the term health to mean "absence of disease" but the authors of your text spend a fair
amount of time talking about health and then comparing that to wellness. Health is difficult to define and
almost impossible to measure. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as "a state of
complete physical, mental, and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease and
infirmity." This definition is so broad that it is virtually useless. It is important to notice that health
includes not only the condition of the body but also the mind and is affected by every aspect of life. Our
health is changing daily and may be referred to as the overall condition of an organism at a given
time. Wellness is meant to be a more encompassing term and refers to good physical and mental health
maintained by diet, exercise, and good habits. Wellness is not static but is dynamic and takes into
account every choice that we make every day. The difference between wellness and health is important
and judging from past classes, students seem to have a hard time with this difference. Make sure that
you do understand and if you have problems, contact your instructor.
Health in fact has several different dimensions or facets:

 Physical—includes body weight, coordination, endurance;

 Emotional—ability to cope with stress and compromise to resolve conflict;
 Social—social skills and insights;
 Intellectual—ability to process and act on information and beliefs and exercise decision-making
ability;
 Spiritual—not only does this include religious beliefs and practices but relationships with other living
things and the need and willingness to serve others;
 Occupational—illustrates the importance of the workplace to the sense of well-being.

The medical model of health refers to the procedures that physicians are trained in and in general
applies to Western training. This model also holds that health is the absence of one or more of the "five
Ds"—death, disease, discomfort, disability, and dissatisfaction. Important in this model are the vital
statistics which include morbidity (illness) and mortality (death) in a population. In the environmental
model, health is thought of as the product of social, economic and environmental determinants that
provide incentives and barriers to the health of individuals and communities. The holistic approach to
health encompasses the belief that there is an interconnected relationship between a person's physical,
mental and spiritual aspects of life. In a holistic health approach, the entire person is treated as a whole
with a "systemic" view where root causes are addressed in a person's emotional, spiritual and physical
life.
Prior to the 20th century infectious disease death rates were extremely high. Infectious disease
mortality declined during the first 8 decades of the 20th century; the mortality rate then increased to a
peak in 1995 and then declined. The decline was interrupted by a sharp spike in mortality caused by the
1918 influenza epidemic. Pneumonia and influenza were responsible for the largest number of infectious
disease deaths throughout the century. Tuberculosis caused almost as many deaths as pneumonia and
influenza early in the century, but tuberculosis mortality dropped off sharply after 1945. Infectious
disease mortality increased in the 1980s and early 1990s in persons aged 25 years and older and was
mainly due to the emergence of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in 25- to 64-year-olds
and, to a lesser degree, to increases in pneumonia and influenza deaths among persons aged 65 years
and older. There was considerable year-to-year variability in infectious disease mortality, especially for
the youngest and oldest age groups. In conclusion, although most of the 20th century has been marked
by declining infectious disease mortality, there may be large year-to-year variations.

Disease Baseline 20th 2007 % Decrease

Century Annual Morbidity
Morbidity
Smallpox 48 164 0 100

Diphtheria 175 885 0 100

Pertussis 147 271 10 454 93

Tetanus 1314 28 98

Polio (paralytic) 16 316 0 100

Measles 503 282 43 99

Mumps 152 209 800 99

Rubella 47 745 12 99

Congenital rubella 823 0 100

syndrome

Haemophilus 20 000 22 99
influenzae type b

(Adapted from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Impact of vaccines universally
recommended for children-United States, 1990-1998. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 1999;48(12):243-
248; and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Notice to readers: final 2007 reports of nationally
notifiable infectious diseases. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2008;57(33):901, 903-913.)
Today, especially in the developed countries, the leading causes of illness and death are "lifestyle
diseases." A lifestyle disease is one associated with the way a person or group of people lives. Lifestyle
diseases include atherosclerosis, heart disease, stroke; obesity, type 2 diabetes, diseases associated
with smoking and alcohol, and drug abuse. Regular physical activity helps prevent obesity, heart
disease, hypertension, diabetes, colon cancer, and premature mortality.
The two lifestyle behaviors which result in the greatest number of deaths are tobacco use and unhealthy
diet and activity patterns. Tobacco use may lead to death from many direct causes including heart
disease, high blood pressure (hypertension), stroke, respiratory diseases, and of course cancer. In an
unhealthy diet there is usually a high consumption of cholesterol and saturated fats. Combined with low
levels of activity, these may also lead to obesity, diabetes, and hypertension.
Physical Activity
The modern industrial society, along with the service focus of industries today, not only provides us with an increased amount of free
or “leisure” time but a more sedentary lifestyle. You have probably heard your grandparents discussing the long, physically hard days
they had to work, as well as how far they had to walk to go to school. While much of this may be an exaggeration, most of us have a
lifestyle that does not compare with their level of physical activity.
One of the status symbols of today is to belong to a gym. Many people believe that we have to spend a lot of money to participate in
physical activities. However, physical activity does not require special equipment or a lot of money. Physical activity is anything you
are doing when you are not sitting or lying down and walking has become the new star of activities.
Besides the physical benefit of physical activity (for example reducing cardiovascular problems, lowering LDL cholesterol and
preventing obesity), there are psychological benefits. Some of these benefits include reduction in tension, anxiety and increased self-
awareness. There are several hypotheses that explain the psychological benefits: exercise becomes a means of self-hypnosis; it
increases production of epinephrine which can produce euphoric feelings; exercise affects secretion of neurotransmitters that result
in mood changes; and exercise also increases secretion of substances like endorphins.

Physical Fitness
Physical fitness is the extent to which the body can respond to the demands of physical effort. While the term fitness may be difficult to define, it is
common knowledge that there are many ways to improve fitness. These conditioning programs generally fall within two categories: aerobic
training—which improves the body’s ability to use oxygen and improves endurance—and strength training—which enhances the size and
strength of particular body regions and/or muscles.

Aerobic energy production is our body’s primary means of energy production. As long as your body can meet its energy demand in this oxygen
rich mode, it will not go into anaerobic energy production. When the oxygen demands of the muscles exceed what can be delivered, oxygen debt
occurs. Any activity beyond this can cause a build-up of by-products such as lactic acid. This build-up of lactic acid is responsible for the burning
sensation in active muscles.

Aerobic training requires the heart and lungs to work harder than usual; this causes them to be more efficient. A training effect
(beneficial physiological changes) that results from aerobic exercise is evident with three to four days of exercise per week. Much
less than this (one or two days) or more than this (daily) may either result in little or no increase in fitness and may actually have
negative effects such as injury.
Strength training involves moving muscles against a resistance repeatedly. Strength training also takes advantage of isometric
exercise. This can result in a healthy individual by reducing the likelihood of injury and even releasing stress. In comparison with
aerobic exercises, strength training provides limited improvement in cardiovascular fitness. Many people believe that if they want to
increase muscle mass, consuming high-protein foods and special vitamin supplements is beneficial. The muscle tissue responds to
the demands of exertion while the extra proteins and vitamins are eliminated from the body.
Because of the short time frame of the course as well as the mode of delivery (online) we will not do the physical part of the wellness
project. Instead you will complete several worksheets that correlate with the material and draw attention to your wellness. The
components of wellness projects typically are:

 Cardiorespiratory fitness – the ability to sustain moderate intensity whole body activity for extended periods.
 Muscular strength – the maximum force applied with a single muscle contraction.
 Muscular endurance – the ability to perform repeated high-intensity muscle contractions.
 Flexibility – the range of motion at a joint or a series of joints.
 Body composition – the percentage of body fat.(We will not be testing this unless you have access to the equipment.)
 Physical benefits of regular physical activity include:
o Improved cardiorespiratory fitness—heart pumps more blood with each stroke; increases the number of capillaries in trained skeletal
muscles; increases the amount of oxygen that is inhaled and distributed to the body tissues.
o More efficient metabolism.
o Improved body composition—the greater calorie expenditure and increase in metabolic rate results in less body fat and more muscle.
o Increased immunity—white blood cells increase after exercise for 30 minutes, this increase can last up to 24 hours.
o Decrease in possibility of osteoporosis—stress on bones results in improved bone mass.

Wellness benefits of regular physical activity include

 Reduced stress—lowers epinephrine

 Reduced anxiety & depression
 Improved self-image
 Enjoyment

All of this exercise discussion might lead one to say that you never get too much exercise or that to get a result, the exercise must
hurt (“no pain—no gain”). Serious illness and injury may be the result instead of better fitness and health.
Proceed to:

Homework Discussion