I’m not necessarily a big Arnold Schwarzenegger fan, but I am so impressed with an article I just read in the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of Fitness Magazine.

Recently, the California governor began promoting an initiative that involves over 2,000 physicians to prescribe a minimum of 150 minutes of exercise a week to sedentary patients.

I think that is so awesome. At a time when we have such a widespread intensity of so many different health challenges like cancer, diabetes, stroke and heart disease, there really couldn’t be a better answer.

With one the leading physical conditions we face being obesity, and that not looking like is it’s getting any better anytime soon, then being more active and exercising is our best bet to help address the obesity problem.

I had the opportunity a few weeks ago to listen to and meet walking guru Mark Fenton.

Fenton was a member of the U.S. national race walking team, is the former editor-at-large of Walking magazine, hosted the March 2000 PBS pledge special Walk to a Better Life and is now host of the new PBS series, America’s Walking.

And I truly think Fenton put it best when he said, “North America is suffering from an epidemic…an epidemic of inactivity—we are immobile—we don’t move enough.

And this “lack of activity” is killing us. It is the leading reason for our obesity issue and in turn the root cause of the majority of our widespread health challenges.

It isn’t a secret that physical activity and exercise play a major role in disease prevention.

So why don’t physicians regularly assess and review all patients’ activity levels with each visit? Make it par for the course.

Obviously, what we are doing now isn’t working.

If we know exercise is at the top of the list to help prevent and sometimes help cure many health challenges, then doesn’t prescribing activity make the most sense?

Schwarzenegger stood alongside the past president of the American College of Sports Medicine, Dr. Robert Sallis, at a forum on health, quoting a famous line, “Sound body—sound mind.”

Exercise and activity is the key. Dr. Sallis was presenting a program managed by the American College of Sports Medicine, called Exercise is Medicine.. 

Their initiative is for physical activity to be considered by all health care providers as a vital sign in every patient visit, and that patients’ are effectively counseled and referred as to their physical activity and health needs, thus leading to overall improvement in the public’s health and long-term reduction in health care cost.

I invite you to check out the www.exerciseismedicine.org site and talk to our Canadian health practitioners—we must start looking at what we are doing, differently.

Sadly, we are not becoming more active even though we know we should. Maybe we’ll become more active if we are ordered to.

Our medical system is more challenged than ever—we must become pro-active individually about our own health. We can’t wait to get moving, exercise really is the simplest and best solution, get active now.

For more information on the benefits of exercise and how it effects our health and fitness, or to learn about Pole Walking and The Pole Lady’s free pole walking clinics, visit www.keenfit.com or call 250-769-9241.