Labor-Saving Devices Are Killing Us - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), March, 2001

A silent epidemic has been slowly taking over the country. As Americans' lives have been helped by technology, their cardiovascular health has been harmed, according to researchers from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

"Currently, 250,000 premature deaths and one trillion dollars in health care costs can be attributed to the American sedentary lifestyle each year" indicates Frank Booth, a professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine. "This lifestyle, which has become increasingly more prevalent ... results in a metabolic state that is linked to at least 17 chronic diseases and other health conditions. Since 1900, there has been a 29-fold increase in heart disease deaths, compounded in the past 40 years by a sixfold increase in diabetes and a twofold increase in obesity."

Booth and his colleagues point to society's increasing use of laborsaving devices and other technologies as the cause of a myriad of health problems. "Technology has made our lives increasingly easier in the past 100 years. We drive cars instead of walking. We ride on elevators instead of walking up stairs. We don't even have to shop for groceries anymore; we can do this online. The effects of computers and other technologies on our lives have been positive, but it hasn't been good for our health."

To combat this trend, Booth calls for "primary prevention," which requires attacking the environmental roots of these conditions, and a conceptual change among exercise biologists. Even though physical inactivity is today's norm, he maintains that researchers should base their studies on a physically active control group.