So I’ve observed a trend in my peer group (and probably quite a few of the folks who read this blog) towards increasingly severe acts* of vigorous exercise. I have begun pondering whether this is a Generation X response to midlife crisis in our own married-late, parent-late way. Or perhaps do we have better things to spend our DINK** incomes on than flashy cars to attract younger mates, so instead we invest in our own attempt at youthful immortality?
In any case, my pondering in this direction was further reinforced by a single sheet of paper posted in the restrooms at my employer (the local sponsored gym puts them up to remind us computer geeks to get healthy). I cannot quote the “Factoid” directly, but a paraphrase will do:
For every hour of vigorous exercise, life expectancy increases by two hours.
Huh. So of course I was forced to find some online reference to verify this claim. The closest to a real attribution came from this wellness presentation from Weber State University. This presentation says:
Dr. Paffenbarger conducted a study on 16,000 Harvard alumni. His research showed that the alumni who exercised regularly had only half the death rate from heart disease compared to those who never exercised. He also determined that, on the average, for every hour you exercise, life expectancy was increased by two hours. Exercise is certainly a good investment in time and health!
A further search revealed this citation: Hsieh Cc (1986) Physical activity, all-cause mortality, and longevity of college alumni, RS Paffenberger Jr, RT Hyde, AL Wing - N Engl J Med
Ok, so we’ll assumer the claim is at least based by research, but what I don’t get is why this should encourage me to exercise. “What!?” you say, “Why wouldn’t you want to live longer?” Let’s think about this for a moment…
So if I spend an hour of my current good health exercising (vigorously!), some great actuarial table in the sky will add two statistical hours to the end of my existence. Nice, one hour makes up for the hour I spent exercising so we break even, and then I get an hour to do with as I please. But wait… if I would have just spent that middle-aged hour doing something I wanted to do… I pretty much break even, right!? Only NOW I get to spend that hour in the prime of my life (or shortly thereafter) rather than having an extra hour of old age. Hmmm… makes you think doesn’t it. I suppose to be fair, if vigorous exercise is actually FUN to you… then maybe this is a different story. Of course, if it IS, then you don’t really need the extra hour incentive, because your FUN past time would be the (vigorous!) exercise.
December 5th, 2007 at 8:13 am
I thought I heard something similar on NPR yesterday, and here it is:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16890505&ft=1&f=1001
Essentially, it’s the 20% ‘least fit’ portion of any age group that is at high risk of early mortality. I haven’t seen you in awhile, but unless you are posting fake pictures of yourself, I hardly think you are in the ‘least fit’ category. I’m not very fit at the moment, and don’t even think that I’m in there (hopefully I’m not wrong about that….)
December 6th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Well, being one of the peers you are alluding to who is gradually increasing the severity of his various athletic endeavors, I must say that I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t *like* it. Sure, running at night or early morning in the cold and dark does indeed suck a bit, but the sense of accomplishment when you successfully meet a goal makes up for it.
It all boils down to priorities. Fundamentally, I’m doing this to stay fit, and in order to stay fit, I have to stay interested in the fitness. A wide variety of activities keeps me from being bored, and while I am “wasting” the occasional hour or two where I could be doing something else, the rest of the time I feel is well spent.
At least in my old age, when I’m 153 and creaky, I can tell lots of cool stories.