Exercise While Young Benefits Later Years
Many research papers show that middle-aged and older women
who are physically active are far less likely to suffer from heart
attacks, the leading cause of death in women in America today.
However, there has been very little research on the effects of
physical activity during young adulthood on exercise patterns
during middle and later age, and whether they influence heart
attack risk in later life. Many years ago, researchers at Harvard
Medical School recruited nearly 40,000 healthy female
professionals, older than 45 years, for the Women's Health
Study. Findings from this ongoing study show that women who
exercise when they are younger are far more likely to exercise
when they are older and are far less likely to die of heart attacks
(Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, August 2005).
Women who exercised 12 months a year during high
school years were more than twice as likely to exercise when
they became middle aged and were also almost half as likely to
suffer a heart attack as women who did not exercise in later life.
So if you have young daughters, encourage them to start an
exercise program that they can keep the rest of their lives. If you
are a middle-aged woman and are not exercising regularly, get
started now. It’s never to late; even 90-year-old women who
begin a supervised exercise program can see dramatic strength
gains in as little as six weeks.
Checked 9/29/08