17-year old Whitney loves to exercise.

“I think it really keeps your body in check and it’s really important for your health,” she notes.

According to research in the Journal “Cancer,” exercising as a teenager can reduce the chances of a woman getting breast cancer by as much as 35-percent.

“Just to put that in perspective,” explains Dr. Debbie Saslow, a researcher with the American Cancer Society, “This year approximately 250-thousand women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and if all those women were to have exercised when they were young and were to have maintained their weight then we might be able to reduce breast cancer by about 100-thousand a year-just by exercise alone.”

Researchers say the key is that exercise reduces a teen’s production of estrogen.

Breast cancer and what causes breast cancer is almost entirely tied to hormones in the body-female hormones like estrogen. And a girl’s teenage years- between the time that she starts menstruating and the time that she has her first pregnancy- that’s the most critical time where the breast tissue and the cells in the breast are most susceptible to changes in the environment,” explains Dr. Saslow.

Exercise, eating right, not smoking, avoiding too much sun- together they build a kind of shield against cancer later in life.

Dr. Saslow offers this advice to teens, “Practice healthy behaviors now and you’ll reap the benefits later.”

Whitney’s advice?

“With all of those things that exercise does for you why not take an hour out of your day to do it? If that’s gonna reduce your risk of getting breast cancer and possibly death when you’re older, I don’t see why anyone would choose not to do that.”

By Larry Eldridge, Jr.
CWK Network, Inc.

Exercise research has shown the following:

• Over 60 percent of American adults are not regularly active.
• Twenty-five percent of adults are not active at all.
• Only 19 percent of high school students are active for 20 minutes or more per day.
• Men are more active than women.
• Physical activity declines with age.
• Ethnic minorities are less active.
• Higher education and income are associated with more leisure-time activity.
• Obese people are usually less active than non-obese persons.

The Surgeon General’s report on physical activity endorses a moderate amount of physical activity that can be obtained by doing any of the following:

• Thirty minutes of brisk walking
• Thirty minutes of lawn mowing
• Thirty minutes of leaf raking
• Fifteen minutes of running
• Forty-five minutes of volleyball

By Larry Eldridge, Jr.
CWK Network, Inc.

Not only does exercise keep bodies healthy and help to prevent diseases, it is also important because it can help keep minds sharp and healthy. Experts at KidsHealth have developed the following list of the benefits of exercising.

• Exercise Makes Your Heart Happy – Your heart is one hardworking part, pumping blood every day of your life. The heart is a muscle, and it’s the strongest muscle in your body, but it’s always looking to become even stronger! Since lifting weights won’t help it get stronger, it relies on you to do aerobic exercise. It’s a good idea for kids to do some kind of aerobic exercise two or three times a week, for 20 to 30 minutes at a time. Some excellent aerobic activities are swimming, basketball, ice or roller hockey, jogging (or walking quickly), rollerblading, soccer, cross-country skiing, biking and rowing. Even dancing, skipping, jumping rope and playing hopscotch are aerobic activities!
• Exercise Makes Muscles – All the muscles in your body do a fine job when you use them for easy stuff, like picking up a book or walking down the stairs. But what about using them for harder stuff, like taking long bike rides or climbing a tree? That’s where exercise comes in. It makes your muscles stronger and sometimes larger. As your muscles get stronger, you can do more active things for longer periods of time. And strong muscles also help protect you from injuries when you exercise, because they give better support to your joints. Building up all different types of muscles is easy to do. For arm strength, try push-ups, pull-ups, tug-of-war or twirling a baton. Rowing in a rowboat or canoeing is great for building strong arm muscles as well. For strong leg muscles, try running, blading, skating and bike riding. And for strong stomach muscles, try sit-ups, bike riding, or even twirling a hula hoop around your waist.
• Exercise Makes You Flexible – Can you touch your toes easily? Most kids are pretty flexible, which means that they can bend and stretch their bodies without too much trouble. But as people get older they tend to get less flexible, so that’s why it’s important to exercise when you’re a kid – so you can stay flexible. Plus, when you’re flexible, you can be more active without having to worry about getting sprains and strained muscles. It’s easy to find things to do for good flexibility. Tumbling and gymnastics are great ways to become more flexible. Yoga and dancing, especially ballet, also increase flexibility. Karate, tae kwon do and other martial arts are great for flexibility, too.
• Exercise Keeps You at a Healthy Weight – Every time you eat food, your body does the same thing: it uses some of the nutrients in the food as fuel. It burns these nutrients to give us energy or calories. You need calories for all of your body’s functions, whether it’s things you think about doing, like brushing your teeth, or things you never think about doing, like breathing. So it’s important for kids to get all the calories they need from the foods they eat.But if the body isn’t able to use all the calories that are coming from food, it stores them away as fat. And that’s why exercise helps keep a child at a weight that’s right for his/her height, by burning up extra calories. When you exercise, your body uses that extra fuel to keep you going strong.
• Exercise Makes You Feel Good – Exercising is a most excellent way to feel happy, whether you’re exercising on your own or with a group. If you’ve had a tough day at school, a fight with your friend or just feel kind of blue, exercising can help you feel better. That’s because when you exercise, your body can release endorphins, which are chemicals that create a happy feeling in your brain. Plus, when you’re breathing deeply during exercise and bringing more air into your lungs, your brain appreciates the extra oxygen. And when you’re active and running around, sometimes it’s hard to think about just what was bothering you. Exercise can make you feel better about yourself, too. When you are stronger and more capable of doing things, you can feel pretty proud – whether you scored the winning goal or hula-hooped for an hour straight!