Augie In Action! Augie In Action! - Ihrsa

Tracy Powell
| Last Rep |
Clubs Fill Exercise
Prescriptions
“Physical inactivity is a fast-growing public health problem in this
country and contributes to a variety of chronic diseases and health
conditions.” So reads a release announcing a new initiative,
“Exercise is Medicine,” from the American Medical Association (AMA).
T
hose of us in the health and fitness club industry
have long accepted, as a given, that exercise provides
wonderful health benefits. Now, nearly every day,
research confirms the soundness of our conviction.
The medical community is proving that the services
we’ve been offering for years are a powerful, costefficient
tool in both disease prevention and treatment.
Recently, the obesity pandemic
has focused attention on
one of the health ramifications
of inactivity, but, as the AMA
notes, it also contributes to a
wide range of other chronic
diseases and medical complications,
including cancer,
diabetes, high blood pressure,
coronary artery disease, anxiety
and depression, arthritis
and osteoporosis.
As the health implications
have become clear, the resulting
economic problems have
become obvious. Lifestylerelated
conditions have the
potential to destroy healthcare systems, wreak
havoc with economies, and even, potentially,
bankrupt governments.
Corporations, insurers, healthcare providers,
public officials—all have been forced to admit that
regular exercise, especially when conducted in the
safe and supportive environment that clubs provide,
is a critical part of the solution.
For years, industry leaders—Lloyd Gainsboro, of
the Dedham Health and Fitness Complex, and Phil
Wendel, of the ACAC Fitness and Wellness
Center, prominent among them—have pushed for
“exercise prescriptions,” i.e., a recommendation, by
doctors, that their patients become more active.
Their idea was formally endorsed last fall when the
AMA and American College of Sports Medicine
(ACSM) launched “Exercise is Medicine.”
Joe Moore
IHRSA President & CEO
224 Club Business International | MARCH 2008 | www.ihrsa.org
IHRSA is proud to be an official supporter of
this program.
“If we had a pill that contained all of the
benefits of exercise, it would be the most widely
prescribed drug in the world,” observes Ronald M.
Davis, M.D., the president of the AMA and a keynote
speaker, this month, at IHRSA’s 27th Annual
International Convention and Trade Show in San
Diego. Davis will discuss “Improving the Health of
the Nation Through Policy, Lifestyle, and Treatment,”
at 11 a.m. on March 7, in conjunction with the Art
and Science of Health Promotion Conference.
The AMA and ACSM have set a number of
important goals for “Exercise is Medicine.” They’re
hopeful that the program will:
1. Create a broad awareness that exercise is, in fact,
a form of medicine.
2. Make “level of physical activity” a standard vitalsign
question raised during every patient visit.
3. Help physicians and other healthcare providers
become consistent and effective in counseling
and referring patients with respect to their
exercise needs.
4. Promote policy changes, in both the private
and public sectors, to support physical-activity
counseling and referrals in clinical settings.
5. Produce an expectation, among patients and the
public at large, that healthcare providers should and
will ask about, and prescribe, exercise.
6. Encourage physicians and other healthcare
providers to be physically active themselves.
The medical community has acknowledged the
problem and identified a remedy. Now, we must
reach out to healthcare providers, providing them
with the information they need to assure them that,
when they’re in our clubs, their patients are in
excellent hands. —|
– Joe Moore, jmoore@ihrsa.org
.org
For full details about the AMA/ACSM program, log on to
www.exerciseismedicine.org.
One Hundred Twenty Million
Members by 2010