Let's Go and Play . . .

Fitness expert Richard Simmons was raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, where eating is a major pastime. I know this firsthand now as we live only a couple of hours from the state line and have a wonderful Cajun restaurant named Ralph & Kacoo’s. (The Cajuns are related to my extended family in Nova Scotia . . . well, more to the point, Acadians migrated to Louisiana!)

Silken Laumann, a fellow alumna of St. Clement’s School in Toronto was raised in Ontario – Toronto and cottage country – and was an Olympic rower. She excelled in sports. Silken writes and campaigns for parents to help their children get active.

Richard Simmons was a stocky child, lacking in self-esteem who was never picked for teams. He lived with a weight problem into his early twenties. After becoming fit, Richard took up the cause of helping others to lose the pounds and get healthy.

There are a lot of big people where we live and that, coupled with encouragement from Hubby, triggered me to lose weight. This is harder to do when we are seniors, but it can be done. It takes lots of willpower to eat proper and balanced meals and exercise every day.

Most people acknowledge that Richard Simmons has been an advocate for a healthy lifestyle for as long as most of us can remember. At his website you can view his presentation to the U.S. Congress. Richard is behind the Fit Kids Bill which would guarantee quality physical education for every child no matter what his or her abilities are. (Currently, there is no Phys.Ed in most U.S. public schools.)

Certainly in the United States, there are a lot of children in front of computers and game systems not getting exercise. Coupled with Canadian Silken Laumann’s advocacy for rediscovering the joy of play in families and communities, we can probably conclude that lack of children exercising is a North American problem.

In addition to children not exercising enough, of course, we have fast food and pizza as major contributors to our avoirdupois. Yes, another factor is both parents working and many parents raising children single-handedly. The days of Mom standing over a stewpot on the stove are so long-gone, that soon there will be nobody to remember them!

This is, of course, not just a juvenile problem and there has just been information about exercise also warding off dementia and Alzheimer’s.

If you go to Richard Simmons’ website, you will be able to see what he is trying to do and what you can do to help these efforts.

If you go to Silken Laumann’s website, you can also learn and act.

Here are your links to those websites and I wish you all a healthy, happy and active day!


http://www.richardsimmons.com

http://www.SilkensActiveKids.ca