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Showing posts with label Walking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Walking. Show all posts

Thursday, September 16, 2021

Doctor's orders: Take a hike, you'll feel better

 

 While more doctors are looking at using time outside as a medical strategy, park prescription programmes face issues of access. Photo: Unsplash/Jon Flobrant 

 When Annette Coen went for a health check-up last summer in Washington state, she and her doctor discussed concerns around her weight and asthma. Then her doctor offered a novel prescription: regular hikes in the woods.

He gave Coen a one-year pass to Washington's state park system and told her to "go for walks, go camping, do what you need to do," Coen, now 53, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

A year on, she said the park prescription was a "great experience" for her and her whole family. "I have lost 13.6 kg since April this year... just being out and about," she said.

With the Covid-19 pandemic highlighting the health benefits of spending more time outdoors, a growing faction of the US medical community is prescribing time outside the same way they would traditional medication.

The idea of writing out park or nature prescriptions has taken hold particularly among pediatricians.

"It all came together" during the pandemic, said Maya Moody, president-elect of the Missouri chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), pointing to spikes in childhood anxiety and pediatric obesity since the coronavirus outbreak started.

With lockdowns keeping children indoors, "we were seeing 30-, 50-, 60-pound weight gains," said Moody, who attends to around 3,000 low-income children in the St. Louis area.

This April, she became one of about a dozen pediatricians across the state who have started offering nature prescriptions.

"When I give a prescription, it's

specific, just like an antibiotic. They use it for this many days, and I say go to this park," she explained. Buy-in has differed with different age groups, Moody noted, with younger children and their parents being more open to the approach but teenagers expressing skepticism.

"Sixteen- and 17-year-olds look at me and say, 'You want me to get off TikTok and get an actual tick in the woods?'" she said.

But Moody said the fact that doctors and health experts are now seriously looking at how something as simple as a walk in the park can help patients is exciting.

A spokesperson for the AAP said the group is forming a committee on the issue of nature prescriptions but declined to offer additional details.

Take a walk

Nature prescriptions are still new, so there is little data on their effectiveness, but one 2018 analysis by researchers from Britain's University of East Anglia did find they "may have substantial benefits".

There has been much more research done on the general benefits of being outdoors - in one example, starting next month, a study supported by the Welsh government will look at the benefits of treating hospital patients outside.

In more than 500 scientific studies in recent years, researchers have linked time spent in nature with decreased anxiety, reduced risk of obesity and even reduced overall mortality, said Maryland-based pediatrician Stacy Beller Stryer.

Stryer is also associate medical director with Park Rx America, an online platform that helps medical professionals write nature prescriptions.

Using its database of thousands of parks and public lands, prescribers can filter by activity, distance from a patient's home and amenities such as playgrounds.

"Once (the patient) decides on where to go, the prescriber talks about what they should do - maybe walk a dog? And how often - maybe every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for 30 minutes?" she said.

Writing out an actual prescription for time in nature gives patients a useful extra push, said Brent A. Bauer, research director of integrative medicine and health at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.

"More than half of my patients who receive a 'prescription' for time in nature go ahead and do so successfully," he said.

A census of park prescription programmes last year estimated that there were more than 100 nationwide.

The Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy began a pilot programme in collaboration with the UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh in 2016, after a pediatric resident was leading patients in a weight management clinic, said Kathryn Hunninen, a senior manager with the conservancy.

"He wanted to encourage patients to get outside but didn't know where to send them," she said.

"This started with an inquiry from him to the parks system and has blossomed from there."

In a 2018 survey, more than 80% of personnel at participating Pittsburgh clinics said they were frequently recommending that patients visit parks.

Last year, Salt Lake County in Utah offered park prescriptions to its employees "to improve or maintain physical and mental health while building sustainable health behaviors," Sarah Kinnison, who oversaw the programme, said in an email.

That first year, 335 employees participated, and the county is running the program again this fall.

Financial stability

While more doctors are looking at using time outside as a medical strategy, park prescription programmes face issues of access.

In low-income neighborhoods, parks are four times smaller and more crowded on average than parks in high-income areas, said a study released last year by the Trust for Public Land, a nonprofit that analysed government data from 14,000 US towns and cities.

It also remains unclear how to keep the programmes financially sustainable. Currently they have to rely on ad hoc funding, often cobbled together from grants, philanthropy or as publicly funded pilot projects.

The costs involved are not particularly high, but they do exist, said Bradford S. Gentry, co-director of the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale University.

They could include the costs of park passes, the salaries of community health workers and park workers to coordinate and lead programmes, and transportation to and from the green space, he said.

"If there are all of these (health) benefits, how do we move from grant funding or public funding to health systems funding?" asked Gentry, who focuses on the intersection of health and land conservation. "I haven't found an answer yet."

The US Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment.

Gentry pointed to Oregon, where work is underway to try to address the funding issue by requesting that certain federal rules be waived involving Medicaid, the US government's health care programme for low-income people.

Every five years states have the opportunity to request such a waiver, if they can show it will result in better care and cost no extra money, said Lori Coyner, who was the state's Medicaid director until July and is now senior Medicaid policy adviser at the Oregon Health Authority.

The state's waiver request is due in December, when it plans to ask for more flexibility in how local organisations address health issues.

"We believe there is real opportunity to use some of these Medicaid dollars... to promote spending more time outdoors," Coyner said. - Thomson Reuters Foundation

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Bukit Jambul - Penang, Malaysia | AllTrails

 

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Sunday, March 11, 2012

Golf, a good walking game!

Make it a good walk  

Golf is an enjoyable sport as long as there is an element of exercise involved, like walking, otherwise it’s just a parlour game.

Bukit Jambul Country Club in Penang has issues with members now not allowed to walk the course.
The phrase “Golf is a good walk spoilt” is often attributed to the famous American scribe Mark Twain, who was said to have used it to describe his frustration with the game.

The truth is that Twain, whose real name is Samuel Langhorne Clemens, never uttered those words but it seems a US magazine in the 1930s attributed the phrase to him because “it sounded like something Twain would say”.

Regardless of who is the original author, we golf mortals, who find the simple instruction of keeping the ball in a straight direction an impossible task, find so much truth in that phrase.

Even a demi-god like Tiger Woods is struggling to keep his game together and often refers to the present state of his game as military golf because he keeps hitting the ball left and then right and then left and then right again – like soldiers marching.

However, all of us continue to chase after the white dimpled ball because we want to get better at it and it is probably the only form of exercise we get after hours in the office. Thus, it’s a good walk spoilt – a good exercise pursuit interjected by bad golf.

This brings me to the recent controversy surrounding the Bukit Jambul Country Club in Penang where the management company running it has decided to ban golfers from walking.

The actual ruling is not a ban on walking but rather that all golfers taking to the course must rent a buggy.

The clash between the golfers and the club operators – Taiyo Resorts – has descended into all sorts of battles from name calling at press conferences to disciplinary hearing against members who opposed the buggy only ruling which took affect on Feb 1.

It all started when some 100 members voiced their displeasure over the compulsory buggy-use rule at the golf club.

According to the club’s liaison committee chairman, Stanley Park, from that day walking hours were restricted to after 5pm (only on Monday and Tuesday). Many other clubs around the country also restrict golfing to non-peak hours but none have enforced it as strictly as BJCC.

“However, the club has already made known to the members of the Liaison Committee during one of our regular meetings, that BJCC shall be a full buggy course as soon as the renovations of the fairways gets completed,” Park said in an interview.

More than 100 disgruntled golfers protested at the club on Feb 2, saying the ruling was not suitable due to the way the course was built as it was designed for golfers to walk and not intended to be a buggy course.

They also complained about the increase in the buggy rental rates from RM22 to RM37 for the first nine holes.

Taiyo Resorts’ managing director Datuk Eiro Sakamoto argued that majority of the club’s 2,800 members did not object to the new ruling and it was just a few golfers who were making noise.

It cannot be denied that the “buggy only” ruling is a way for the company to increase their ancillary income – after all it had promised the state government, which owns the course an increase in profit.

However, most visitors to Bukit Jambul would rent a buggy as it is quite a commando course with hilly and tight fairways that are quite sapping for those unused to such conditions.

But for golfers, seeking a good workout, Bukit Jambul is the perfect course to keep fit and to test whether you can avoid playing Tiger’s military golf.

Making money from running a golf club is not an easy thing especially when you have a course built into the top of a hill. Maintenance, I expect, would be high and the green fees collection cannot be much.

The subscription is just over RM90 and with 2,800 members, this works out to be RM252,000 per month. The extra revenue from F&B plus ancillary income like golf buggy rental becomes important.

However, the management of BJCC must take cognisance of the importance of walking when playing golf.

It improves your game because it keeps the rhythm going when one walks:

  • This is how the game is supposed to be played and this way the game finishes faster as the golfer walks straight to the ball.

  • It improves the fellowship among the flight of golfers because all four of them can walk and talk at the same time.

    I hope that the matter can be resolved amicably as golf is a gentleman’s game with proper rules.

    So till next month, walk the course and truly enjoy the view.

    Keep Walking.. Keep Walking...Keep Walking

    Keep Walking.....

    Because...
     
    The Organs of your body have their sensory touches at the bottom of your foot.

    If you massage these points you will find relief from aches and pains as you can see the heart is on the left foot.

    Typically they are shown as points and arrows to show which organ it connects to.

    It is indeed correct since the nerves connected to these organs terminate here.

    This is covered in great details in Acu-pressure studies.
     
    God created our body so well that he thought of even this.

    He made us walk so that we will always be pressing these pressure points and thus keeping these organs activated at all times.

    So, keep walking....... LIVE LONGER !!!!! 

  •  Golfer or not, you must see this clip...
     http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=aw-nt0eTb2w

    It's all in the balance... (He plays off 3!!) And he walks the course!!!!!

    Is there something unreal with our fliers at the club?

    Hear that members are filing court action for some declaration of rights to play golf the way it was meant to be played?

    Perhaps some of you LC members can show this clip to the presiding judge. Thanks
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