A mover gets others going

The statistics are downright scary: Approximately 2.5 million Americans will die prematurely in the next 10 years, thanks to spending too much time in front of the TV. Frank Booth, Ph.D., professor of physiology at the University of Missouri-Columbia, has even given the couch-potato condition a medical name: Sedentary Death Syndrome, or SeDS (saids).

Booth is also spearheading a campaign to persuade the government and medical community to fight harder against the causes and effects of inactivity, and the obesity that goes with it. And not a moment too soon: An estimated 60 percent of us will succumb to one of the 35 diseases associated with under-exercising and overeating. The all-too-familiar list includes breast and colon cancer, hypertension, heart disease, stroke and depression.

To focus his get-going drive, Booth has formed Researchers Against Inactivity-Related Diseases (RID), which is already attracting big-name support. Groups like the powerful Center for Science in the Public Interest, a leading consumer-advocacy organization, have joined in. For more about RID and how to help boost its activities--and your own--log onto www.ridinactivity.org.

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