|
Guest column: Rec center offers positive impacts on body and mind
by Cassidy White, Grinnell College senior · Op-Ed · April 10, 2014
The Center for Disease Control estimates that one in every three Americans is obese, with medical expenditures for obesity amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars each year.
The message that “obesity is bad” is not new, nor controversial; yet rates of this diet-induced condition continue to rise in both children and adults.
As our small community is not immune to these trends, I am pleased to read about the developing plans for a community recreation center in West Branch.
Such a facility will create new opportunities for more people of all ages to engage in physical activity.
In addition to helping us fight obesity’s well-known, adverse health effects (including an increased risk of type II diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and some cancers), healthy habits encouraged by a recreation center could also benefit our brains.
As a student at Grinnell College, I have taken an interest in research at the intersections of psychology and public health. I have seen a growing body of scientific evidence demonstrating that diet and body mass are connected to the way our brains function and process information.
For example, excess body weight is now associated with a greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and earlier onset of dementia. Furthermore, studies show obese individuals, across all ages, exhibit lower scores on memory performance tasks once we account for factors such as income, education level, and baseline memory ability.
Obese adults even subjectively report more memory problems than adults at a healthy weight. My own research at Grinnell investigates the neural components that may biologically explain these differences.
Though the precise changes taking place in the brain are still under investigation, the existence of a link between obesity and a memory dysfunction is less in question as researchers continue to accumulate similar results across many subject groups in both humans and other animals.
When drafting budgets and contemplating the various components of a recreation center, I hope City Council will prioritize the scope of the community that will gain access to new means of exercise. Based on research in which I am familiar, this facility has the potential to positively impact not only the fate of our physical health, but also that of our mental abilities.
Cassidy White is a member of the West Branch High School Class of 2010 and a senior at Grinnell College, in Grinnell, IA, majoring in psychology with a concentration in neuroscience.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
