Walking helps you stay fit and healthy. Being active even lowers your risk for serious health problems, like heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes, depression and some cancers.
Yet more than half of adults in the U.S. don’t get enough physical activity. What is enough? Adults need at least 2.5 hours – and children about an hour – of “moderately intense” aerobic activity each week for better health. This can include walking briskly, dancing, gardening and biking. A good test to see if your workout is making an impact is whether you can talk, but not sing, as you’re doing it.
Americans eat a lot more calories today than they did just a few decades ago. Part of the problem is fast food and super-sized portions. Our food servings have doubled or tripled at restaurants – and even at home.
Getting a good night’s sleep can help you in many ways. It can keep your heart healthy, lower your risk for cancer and diabetes, reduce stress and even promote weight loss.
There are bad habits and there are bad habits. When people smoke cigarettes, cigars or pipes, they’re not just hurting themselves. Every exhale puts more than 250 dangerous chemicals into the air.
Everyone thinks about sun safety during the summer or at the beach. But it’s important to protect yourself all year long – even on cloudy and hazy days. The sun, as well as tanning beds and sunlamps, gives off an invisible kind of radiation called ultraviolet (UV) rays.
Whether you eat three or six meals a day, maintaining a healthy weight comes down to what you eat, how much you eat and how much energy you use. We gain weight when we eat more calories than we burn. So it’s really important to couple balanced meals with an active lifestyle.
Health affects everything: Your quality of life. Your emotional and mental well-being. Your relationships, work, and finances. Even what you do for fun.