Fitness and Exercise Concepts

Concept Terms

• Exercise is physical activity performed to get physically fit.
• Physical activity is a broad term describing large muscle movements like sports, dance, work, and lifestyle activities.
• Exercise and physical activity are often used interchangeably to reduce repetitive reading.
• Health is optimal well-being that contributes to quality of life and includes high-level mental, social, emotional, spiritual, and physical wellness within personal limits.
• A hypokinetic condition results from a lack of physical activity or regular exercise; examples include heart disease, low back pain, adult-onset diabetes, and obesity.
• Illness is the feeling and/or symptoms associated with a disease or circumstances that upset homeostasis.
• Lifestyles are patterns of behavior or ways an individual typically lives.
• Physical fitness is the body's ability to function efficiently and effectively, with at least eleven components contributing to total quality of life.
• Physical fitness also includes metabolic fitness and the ability to resist hypokinetic diseases and meet emergency situations.
• Optimal physical fitness is not possible without regular exercise.
• Metabolic fitness is a positive state of the body's physiological systems, associated with reduced risk of chronic diseases.
• Metabolic fitness is evidenced by healthy blood fat profiles, blood pressure, blood sugar, and insulin levels, responding positively to moderate activity.
• Bone integrity is the soundness of bones associated with high density and absence of deterioration.

Facts about Health and Wellness

• Good health is of primary importance to adults.
• Health varies with income, gender, age, and family origin.
• Increasing the span of healthy life is a health goal.
• Health is more than freedom from illness and disease.
• Many illnesses are manageable with limited effect on total health.
• Wellness is the positive component of optimal health.
• Health and wellness are multidimensional and individual.
• Wellness reflects how one feels about life and one's ability to function effectively.
• Health and wellness are integrated states of being.
• Wellness can be present even with illness.
• Wellness is a term used by experts as well as inexpert people.

Facts about Physical Fitness

• Physical fitness is a multidimensional state of being.
• Health-related components of physical fitness are linked to good health.
• Skill-related components of physical fitness are linked to performance.
• Metabolic fitness is a non-performance component of total fitness.
• Bone integrity can be considered a non-performance measure of fitness.
• Physical fitness components are specific and inter-related.
• Physical fitness differs from physical health and wellness.

Facts about Healthy Lifestyles

• Lifestyle contributes to preventing illness and early death.
• Causes of early death have shifted from infectious diseases to chronic lifestyle-related conditions.
• Healthy lifestyles are critical to wellness.
• Physical activity, nutrition, and stress management are priority healthy lifestyles.
• Emphasis has shifted to prevention, promotion, and disease treatment.

Components of Physical Fitness

• Five components of physical fitness are known as health-related fitness components.
• Physical fitness is essential for complete fitness of body and mind
• Physical fitness is now defined as the body's ability to function efficiently in work and leisure, resist hypokinetic diseases, and meet emergencies.
• General fitness is a state of health and well-being.
• Specific fitness involves the ability to perform aspects of sports or occupations.
• Overall fitness involves the five components of physical fitness.
• Skill-related components like speed, agility, balance, coordination, reaction time, and power help judging physical fitness of an athlete.

5 Health Related Fitness Components

• Body composition is the ratio of fat to muscle and fitness levels relate to body composition.
• Lean mass includes muscles, bones, tissues, and organs.
• Cardiovascular endurance measures the heart and lungs working in coordination and the body's ability to deliver oxygen and nutrients.
• Cardiovascular endurance is also known as cardiovascular fitness, aerobic fitness, and cardiorespiratory fitness.
• Cardiovascular exercises include swimming, cycling, walking, running, jogging, and aerobics.
• Flexibility measures the ability of joints to move through their full range of motion and prevent injuries.
• Flexibility relates to limb movement around joints; protagonist muscles cause movement, while antagonist muscles oppose movement and determine flexibility.
• Stretching, yoga, Pilates, and swimming may improve physical flexibility.
• Flexibility is measured using devices like goniometers and flexometers.
• Muscular endurance is the body's ability to perform repeated exercises without fatigue.
• Muscular endurance involves the muscles' ability to sustain repeated contractions against resistance over time and relates to cardio-respiratory endurance.
• Types of endurance include aerobic, anaerobic, speed, and strength endurance.
• Strength training exercises such as running, jogging, and cross-training may increase muscular endurance.
• Muscular endurance is based on the number of repetitions that can be performed.
• Muscular strength is the ability of muscles to lift weight and increase muscle mass.
• Muscular strength is measured by the maximum amount of strength a muscle has while lifting or during exertion.
• Strength may be "the ability to exert a force against a resistance".
• Maximum strength is the greatest force possible in a single maximum contraction.
• Elastic strength is the ability to overcome a resistance with a fast contraction.
• Strength endurance involves the ability to express force many times over.
• A fitness regimen improves the ability of muscles to exert force and sustain contraction.
• Muscle strength is improved through exercise such as lifting weights.
• Weight training exercises include push-ups, pull-ups, biceps curls, pectoral fly, and leg extensions.
• Lab and field tests assess the maximum amount of resistance you can overcome one time.
• Health-related components are factors related to how well the body systems work.
• Cardiovascular fitness is the ability of the circulatory system to supply oxygen to muscles during exercise.
• Body composition is the percentage of body fat compared to lean body mass.
• Flexibility is the range of motion possible at various joints.
• Muscular strength is the amount of force produced by a single contraction.
• Muscular endurance is the ability of a muscle group to continue moving.
• Skill-related components form the basis for physical activities.
• Speed is the ability to move quickly from one point to another.
• Agility is the ability to change direction quickly.
• Balance is the ability to maintain posture while still or moving.
• Coordination is the integration of hand or foot movements with the senses.
• Reaction time is how long it takes to get moving.
• Power is the ability to do strength work at an explosive pace.

Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) and Risk Factors

• Most NCDs, also known as "lifestyle" diseases, are preventable.
• Common causes of NCDs include tobacco use, alcohol abuse, poor diet, and physical inactivity.
• NCDs kill 38 million people annually, with 28 million deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries.
• 16 million NCD deaths occur before age 70, and 82% of these premature deaths are in low- and middle-income countries.
• Cardiovascular diseases account for 17.5 million deaths, followed by cancers (8.2 million), respiratory diseases (4 million), and diabetes (1.5 million).
• These 4 diseases account for 82% of all NCD deaths.
• Tobacco, inactivity, alcohol, and unhealthy diets increase the risk of dying from an NCD.
• NCDs (chronic diseases) are not passed from person to person, progress slowly.
• The four main types of NCDs: cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases, and diabetes.
• A non-communicable disease (NCD) is non-infectious or non-transmissible.
• NCDs lead to 68% of all deaths globally.
• Risk factors like background, lifestyle, and environment increase the likelihood of certain NCDs.
• Tobacco use causes 5 million deaths, being overweight 2.8 million, high cholesterol 2.6 million, and high blood pressure 7.5 million.
• NCDs disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries.
• All ages and regions are affected by the risk of NCDs
• 16 million deaths occur before the age of 70, of which 82% happen in low- and middle-income countries.
• Children, adults, and the elderly are vulnerable to the risk factors for NCDs, like unhealthy diets, inactivity, tobacco exposure, and harmful alcohol use.
• NCDs are driven by aging, urbanization, and globalization of unhealthy lifestyles.
• Unhealthy diets can lead to intermediate risk factors like raised blood pressure, increased blood glucose, elevated blood lipids, and obesity, which can cause cardiovascular disease (an NCD).
• Two-thirds of premature deaths from NCDs are linked to unhealthy behaviors.
• NCDs are preventable via interventions that tackle shared modifiable behaviors.
• The eastern mediterranean region accounts for 77% of NCD deaths.
• Unhealthy behaviors include tobacco use, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and harmful alcohol use.
• Unhealthy behaviors can increase blood pressure, cause obesity and diabetes, or increase levels of fat in the blood.
• Prevention and treatment are needed to reverse the NCD epidemic.
• WHO NCD action plan, which focuses on the modifiable behavioral risk factors, will be implemented from 2013 to 2020.
• Risk factors include age, gender, genetics, air pollution, smoking, unhealthy diet, and physical inactivity.
• WHO found five risk factors for NCDs like raised blood pressure, raised cholesterol, alcohol, tobacco, and being overweight.
• Primary risk factors, if eliminated, could prevent 80% of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes and 40% of cancers.
• Prevention efforts focusing on diet and physical activity are known to control the prevalence of NCDs.

Modifiable Behavioral Risk Factors

• Modifiable behaviors like tobacco use, physical inactivity, unhealthy diet, and harmful use of alcohol increase NCD risk.
• Tobacco annually accounts for 6 million deaths and is expected to kill 8 million by 2030.
• Insufficient physical activity accounts for 3.2 million deaths annually.
• Harmful alcohol consumption causes more than half of the 3.3 million related deaths from NCDs.
• Excess sodium intake causes 1.7 million cardiovascular deaths each year.

Lifestyle Related Risk Factors

• Diseases like cardiovascular disease, cancers, respiratory diseases and diabetes caused by NCDs are the leading cause of premature death in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, accounting for 1.7 million deaths every year.
• Two-thirds of these early deaths are linked to behaviors like tobacco use.
• Tobacco use kills 6 million people per year; 5 million from direct use, 600,000 from secondhand smoke.
• One out of ten adult deaths or a death every six seconds is attributed to tobacco use, affecting up to half of current users.
• A healthy diet can reduce the risks of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes and other conditions linked to obesity.
• Eating more fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts and grains and cutting down on salt, sugar and fats, especially unsaturated fats, is recommended.
• Obesity contributes to premature death from cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes.
• Overweight levels are between 74%-86% amongst women and 69%-77% among men in the Eastern Mediterranean Region.
• Physical inactivity causes early global deaths, with alarming levels in the Eastern Mediterranean Region.
• Roughly 31% of the global population does not meet the recommended amount of physical activity.
• Physical activity reduces the risk of heart diseases by 30%, diabetes by 27%, breast and colon cancer by 21-25%.
• Using of alcohol causes detrimental health and social consequences.
• Alcohol results in 3.3 million deaths globally, more than HIV/AIDS, violence, or tuberculosis

Metabolic/Physiological Risk Factors of NCDs

• Metabolic/physiological risk factors that contribute to NCDs are raised blood pressure, overweight/obesity, hyperglycemia, and hyperlipidemia.
• Elevated blood pressure, overweight and obesity, and raised blood glucose increase attributed deaths globally.
• A lifestyle disease relates to the way person/group of people live. Lifestyle diseases include atherosclerosis, heart disease, stroke, obesity and type 2 diabetes, which all relate to smoking, alcohol, and drug abuse.
• Physical activity also prevents cancer, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, colon cancer, and premature mortality.
• Cancers are environmental or lifestyle-related and preventable.
• Over 30% of cancer is preventable from tobacco, obesity, low vegetable intake, physical inactivity, alcohol, infections, and air pollution, and cervical cancer from human papillomavirus infection.
• Biomedical research continues actively to provide the prevention, treatment, causes, and of cardiovascular health.
• A fast food has been associated with increased heart disease.
• C-reactive protein (CRP) is a cardiovascular inflammatory marker.
• Regulation of NF-kB by osteoprotegerin is a risk factor of cardiovascular disease and mortality.

Diabetes (Type 2)

• Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus can be be manageable but difficult to cure and is a chronic condition.
• Management of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus requires "euglycemia" through use of diet, exercise (when a patient can), and medications like insulin.
• Patient education, understanding, and participation are important to manage blood sugar levels.
• Wider health problems include smoking, elevated cholesterol levels, obesity and blood pressure, and a lack of exercise.
• Chronic kidney disease is harmful for NCD control.
• CKD poses a risk and causes or exacerbates diabetes, hypertension and CVD and may result is a higher health risk and cost.
• Diabetes, CVD and CKD needs coordinated global prevention and control.

Socioeconomic Impacts and Prevention of NCDs

• NCDs threaten the UN Millennium Development Goals.
• NCDs leads to poverty, and poverty causes NCDs.
• NCDs can drain finances and make people sick based on what socioeconomic class they are a part of.
• Action is needed in sectors like health, finance, foreign affairs, education, defense, agriculture, and planning.
• Focusing on lessening risk factors and creating low-cost solutions help to mitigate non-communicable diseases.
• Other ways of reducing NCDs focus on early detection.
• Lower income countries have lower capacity for NCD prevention and control.
• Higher income countries are four times more likely to have health insurance related to NCD prevention versus lower income countries.
• NCDs are lifestyle illnesses, the common causes for non-communicable diseases (NCD) include tobacco use, alcohol abuse, poor diets which include high consumption of sugar, salt, saturated fats, trans fatty acids and physical inactivity.
• NCD is associated with wealth, development, cardiovascular health, cancer, diabetes, respiratory disease, and affluence.
• Deaths from non-communicable diseases on the rise, with developing world hit hardest.
• NCD attributed deaths in developing countries will kill 52 million annually worldwide by 2030, affecting the WHO and WBHDN.
• Policymakers must "prevent and target" sustainable treatment for this "global health threat."
• The WHO and FAO target reduce the levels of salt in foods, restrict the marketing of alcohol and unhealthy junk food, control harmful alcohol use, raise taxes on tobacco, and pass anti-smoking laws.
• In 2011, WHO and 190 countries came to a global mechanisms
• A "global action plan" will help reduce the number of premature deaths from NCDs by 25% by 2025 with nine voluntary global targets.
• Factors from tobacco, the harmful use of alcohol, a lack of healthy diet and or physical activity are increasing people's risk of developing these diseases.
• Forms of advertising, alcohol or tobacco and more, have been getting banned.
• Cervical cancer is getting screened for and prevented .
• Trans fats have been getting replaced with polyunsaturated fats.
• Breast feeding has been getting protected and promoting.
• 2015: countries target global to track progress, UN will convene to asses plans.