Unfortunately, the United States is experiencing a considerable health crisis and has been for some time now. Obesity is on the rise, with more than 78 million adults considered obese by the year of 2010. In that same year, it was also found that more than 12% of the child population was also obese. If nothing is done to stop this, these numbers will only climb ever upwards, with more than half of all adults meeting that threshold for obesity all by the time that we reach the year of 2030, which is now only just over a decade away.
But why exactly has obesity become so very prevalent in so many parts of this country? For one thing, a lack of a proper diet has made it all the harder to stay healthy – and at a healthy weight. After all, the total number of fast food restaurants in the United States has actually doubled over the course of the past 40 years or so. Fast food is wildly convenient, making it something of an easy choice for many families and people looking to streamline their evenings after a long and often difficult day in the working world. Unfortunately, this food is far from nutritionally dense but all too abundant in things like refined grains, added sugars, saturated and solid fats, and high levels of sodium.
A lack of physical movement is another key to the obesity crisis, as far too many of us are living wholly sedentary lives, often thanks to the nature of our work. In fact, only around 5% of the total adult population of the United States is actually getting even just a mere half of an hour of exercise on a daily basis. To make matters even worse, less than half of this same population is expected to get the weekly recommended amount of exercise. Unfortunately, matters are not better among children, among whom only one third are getting exercise throughout the course of the typical day. And when such sedentary habits begin so early on in life, it is all too likely that they will carry on in the years that are to come, often leading to significant health consequences during the adult years of the children in question.
So what can we do? For one thing, finding a way to get up and moving in just about any way at all is going to have a tremendously positive impact, there is just no doubting this fact. After all, even just walking more can improve your health immensely. There’s a reason that walking is the most common activity among people who exercise regularly, with more than 30% of all such people preferring walking over just about anything else.
But what about during the cold months, when walking outside is unpleasant if not straight up impossible? After all, much of the country will experience a considerable winter season each year, thus rendering ease of exercise much more difficult than during the spring, summer, and even fall periods. Fortunately, there are ways around this, such as investing in exercise equipment. Exercise equipment is actually quite easy to find, as you can buy it at everywhere from a fitness warehouse in Naperville, Illinois to a sports store in Tacoma or Walnut Creek (or really anywhere else throughout the country, for that matter). Buying exercise equipment might seem somewhat costly up front, but setting up a home fitness space in your home will actually pay off in the long run.
After all, owning your own exercise equipment means that you will never have to pay for a gym membership. For while gym memberships at first will cost much less than a piece or two of your own exercise equipment, the exercise equipment is likely to be a much more lasting investment. So many people get gym memberships and then fail to go on any kind of consistent basis – if at all. Owning your own exercise equipment and seeing this exercise equipment in your home day in and day out is likely to be much more successful and motivational in the grand scheme of things, to say the very least.
