Heart Disease
LEISURE TIME SIGNIFICANTLY AFFECTS CARDIOVASCULAR RISK FACTORS – (05-26-08)
Leisure time but not occupational physical activity significantly affects cardiovascular risk factors
I frequently have patients check off the exercise box on their intake questionnaire, but when asked, they say that their job is strenuous. Unfortunately, this is not the first study to find that work time activity do not have the same positive effects as leisure time activity.
Intuitively, this does not seem to make sense, since the body should not recognize the difference between the setting in which the activity occurs, in addition to the fact that our bodies were designed for hard labor, NOT exercise (there is no archeological evidence of prehistoric Nordic tracks, treadmills or Ellipticals….). It may be that the psychological status of the setting in which the activity occurs is the major player, but I can’t prove that.
