WHO Tells World's Couch Potatoes to Shake a Leg

Reuters ^ | April 8 2002

[2Trievers]

SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - World Health Organization (news - web sites) Director General Gro Harlem Brundtland delivered an order to couch potatoes across the globe on Friday -- get off the sofa and exercise.

Brundtland's message opened events leading up to World Health Day on April 7 from Brazil.

The U.N. health agency has declared war on what it calls an "epidemic of inactivity," which it says causes heart problems, obesity, and diabetes.

"We have a cure," Brundtland said. "It's physical exercise, 30 minutes per day."

"It's taking the kids to school on foot or taking a walk around the park," she told reporters at a Sao Paulo city news conference. "It's using the stairs instead of the elevator. It's getting off the sofa and moving."

WHO's campaign, dubbed "Move for health", is modeled on the Sao Paulo state government's 1997 drive to convince sedentary people in Brazil's richest and most populous city to do 30 minutes of exercise per day to help ward off illness.

[2Trievers]

There are other ways to get 30 minutes of exercise daily ... how provincial!