Exercise is medicine
Sports medicine experts from Australia and the US gathered at Sydney University on 21 July to discuss the concept of ‘Exercise as Medicine’.
Opening the series of lectures, Professor Adrian Bauman presented a unique analogy for physical inactivity, describing it as the Cinderella of the modern world. The link being that despite Cinderella’s importance, she was never taken seriously. Presenting on ‘Why physical activity is the most important global health challenge’, Bauman referenced the statistic that 59 million people globally die of a non communicable disease (NCD) each year. As one of the key risk factors for NCDs, Bauman voiced his frustrations that the risks associated with physical inactivity are still not being taken seriously.
A Professor at Sydney University's School of Public Health, Bauman says the solution is not to focus specifically on exercise participation, but rather an overall increase in the amount of physical activity society engages in. As opposed to exercise, which is a planned and structured activity, the World Health Organisation defines physical activity as, “activities which involve bodily movement and are done as part of playing, working, active transportation, house chores and recreational activities.” Bauman referred to seven investments that need to be made globally to increase physical activity. These included investment in school programs, transport policies that support active commutes, public infrastructure, the move to have physical activity integrated into primary health care systems, public education, community programs and sport programs that encourage across-the-board participation for all demographics. Offering his own predictions on themost effective intervention, Bauman stressed the importance of individual counseling and exercise prescription through the health sector.
Confirming the need to look at sport, exercise and physical activity as separate entities, Dr John Orchard from the College of Sports Physicians spoke to attendees about the double-edged sword of sport. While the various health benefits of sport participation are widely documented, Dr Orchard spoke about the negatives of sport in terms of doping, pressures to perform and media coverage of player misconduct. Because of these negative connotations, which often overshadow the positives of sport, Dr Orchard says the solution to inactivity lies in promoting physical activity rather than sport, for which there are many barriers to participation. Also using the forum to voice his frustrations, Dr Orchard spoke about the need for the cost of physical activity participation to be subsidised by the health sector. Despite exercise leading to an approximate 30% improvement in, as an example, breast cancer survival rates, Dr Orchard says the value of subsidising the cost of participation as well as treatment of exercise induced or associated injuries is still not acknowledged.
On the other end of the spectrum, two sports medicine experts visiting from the US spoke about the incidence of genetic heart disease in young athletes, raising the question ‘Are there individuals for whom strenuous exercise is too risky?’. While this is out of the scope of practice of an exercise professional to decide, it rounded out an interesting discussion by looking at the importance of physical activity in the sense that for athletes, exercise is their life. An example of an athlete for whom this couldn’t be truer is Dana Vollmer, a US Olympic medallist who continues to swim despite the fact that she was diagnosed with a heart condition that puts her at risk of exercise induced sudden cardiac arrest.
Exercise professionals can attend similar discussions for free at Sydney University. Visithttp://whatson.sydney.edu.au/events/ for more information.
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