Been Told To Exercise? You’ll Keep Hearing It

The Surgeon General’s report on exercise was only the warmup. Americans are in for a chorus of exhortations to get off the couch.

Now that the report trumpeting the known value of exercise is out, government agencies, community groups, professional organizations and exercise-oriented businesses intend to drive home the message.

“What I want to say is, we have to get America moving,” said Donna E. Shalala, secretary of Health and Human Services. Even if it takes becoming a “national nag.”

“I’m happy to be accused of being a national nag on cigarettes, exercise and diet,” she said. “Those are the things that are killing people.”

Thirty minutes of brisk walking counts as moderate activity and can reduce the risk of conditions such as depression, diabetes, high blood pressure - even early death, the report said.

One goal is to make exercise a part of daily life, Shalala said.

“I will approach ‘TV Guide’ and television and radio with an exercise a week for couch potatoes.”

The Surgeon General’s report, issued July 11, said that more than 60 percent of adults don’t get enough regular physical activity, and 25 percent get none. At a minimum, people should be moderately active on most days of the week, it said.

To make sure the report doesn’t end up gathering dust, the federal government is counting on community-level organizations such as those set up by the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports to do a lot of the legwork.

But one exercise researcher, Rod K. Dishman of the University of Georgia, thinks it will take more than a government-led effort to motivate normally sedentary Americans to exercise.

It will require money that might have to be diverted from other health campaigns, he said.

As for corporate funding, Dishman is dubious, since fitness professionals such as aerobics instructors typically work by themselves, not as part of a wealthy corporation. And companies that sell health equipment would be more interested in sales than in having people choose an exercise routine and sticking with it, he said.

“It could well be that things continue on as usual after there’s a flurry of attention,” Dishman said.