I was horrified the other day when I saw my Dad sitting on his couch with both legs bandaged all the way from his knees to the bottom of his feet. The reason for this is basically he doesn’t do enough walking and this has been the problem since he has been caring for my mother and refuses to virtually leave her side. He is proof that inactivity can seriously damage your health.
Lately, there has been a great deal of information in the press about how sitting all day is doing serious damage to our long term health. Research has found direct links to ailments such as heart disease and diabetes among many others. These serious consequences are not to be ignored or dismissed. My Dad has pretended there will be no consequences and is now paying the penalty.
The truth is that if you don’t use your body you’re likely to get into problems.
It should be obvious to everyone that our health is the most important thing in our life. Yet if we are inactive, the chances are before too long you’re going to have problems. The human body requires a certain level of maintenance so it can function correctly. This is a great reason to get active and start exercising. Walking would be a great starting place.
When you do what my Dad has been doing and that is still for long periods of time, watching the television being there for my mother the results can be very harmful, including Type 2 Diabetes; cardio vascular diseases; stroke; high blood pressure and muscular problems.
All of these diseases might be prevented by getting effective exercise. Without it things can get seriously out of hand. My dad has something very similar to Chronic Venous Insufficiency.
Chronic Venous Insufficiency is a problem with getting blood to go back to the heart from the legs. It causes swelling of the legs. It can also cause sores on the legs. It is caused by the valves in your veins not working well, which makes it hard for your blood to move up toward your heart. The blood may flow back into other veins and collect in the tissues of the lower legs and feet, causing swelling and sores. This has been caused by inactivity which has weakened and damaged the valves in his veins and therefore caused this Chronic venous insufficiency.
Symptoms include:
- Ankle swelling
- Leg swelling
- A dull ache or heaviness in the legs, especially after standing for a long time
- Enlargement of the veins close to the surface of your skin
- Yellow fluid oozing from the skin
- Change of skin color in the affected area to brown, red, or reddish brown
- Leathery skin texture and leg tissue that feels hard when you touch it
- Flaking and itching
- Sores on legs
So now he is sitting with Compression stockings to decrease pressure in the veins and prevent sores.
The true cause, is simply inactivity. To keep your veins healthy, you need to keep a healthy weight and activity level particularly keeping your calf muscles strong and active.
Nobody should remain inactive and leave themselves in threat of ill health. Instead they need to be doing some form of exercise. They need to accept that not getting enough physical exercise is seriously risking their health. Physical inactivity causes about 3.5 million deaths every year.
Physical activity should be made an important health priority. Physical activity will improve health and reduce disease, and I pray my Father is reading this.
Health benefits can come from doing just 30 minutes of exercise a day and this will see a big improvement in their health. Essentially, if you can consistently keep up the 30 or so minutes a day of exercise then you’re on the right track to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. You’re not going to see big endurance or muscle gains, but you’ll hit the targets needed to improve your health.
The body is a complex machine. It is paramount that we take care of it. Walking a simple exercise is all that one needs to do for starters and it will make an enormous difference.
So Dad get off your ass, cut out the excuses and begin to walk once more. I BEG YOU!
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The health risks of inactivity are very real, what is less understood are the dangers involved in over exercise. Over exerting yourself regularly floods your system with free radicals that cause severe cellular damage. Finding a balance is the key, take a light walk everyday or exercise with low weight on a regular basis. Fantastic article, we all know exercise is important, but seeing what can happen without it is eye opening.