Newsweek Gets It Right

I was pleased to see in the Newsweek article 'Crimes of the Heart' (Newsweek, February 15, 2010) that the authors actually recommended adding bike lanes to highway bills as a way of helping Americans (and tourists, too, I guess) to keep fit. I have just spent the last decade of my life working uncountable hours placing stents, and later operating life-support machines, to help keep Americans from their premature fate. As the health care debate made headlines on how to fund our sick behavior, I saw scant mainstream articles on trying to prevent being sick. And yes, the bicycle, I believe, will play a vital role in a new health plan for Americans.

My wife and I recently got the chance to live a year in bike crazy Boulder, Colorado. We sold one of our cars and bought a few bicycles for each of us with the money. We drove less than 7,000 miles during that year. But more importantly, my wife kept a log every two days of the miles she rode. She often averaged 30-40 miles, or 15-20 miles a day. I finally dropped those extra pounds I didn't want and we really did have extra money. But, even in Boulder, were one can hardly swing a cat without hitting at least a couple of bike commmuters, over 90% of people still commute by car on a regular basis. I am not naive to think that bicycle commuters will ever out number cars, but, a 25% rate of people commuting by bicycle would be a good goal. Maybe instead of a Bike to Work Day, we could get a whole month to encourage the habit. (Psychologists say for an action to become a habit, one must repeat the action 28 times.)

I also have to applaud the article for it's other suggestions of promoting health. While nothing is ground breaking in the article, I feel the message has to be perpetuated. With obesity an epidemic, I feel true health care reform is falling on deaf ears of people who can create policy. A recent medical study in Spain reported that people who had severe heart disease and adopted a heart healthy lifestyle with no medical intervention actually had a higher survival rate than their counterparts who opted for medical intervention. (I won't float any conspiracy theories about the drug companies here.) But, Americans will never really know good health until we turn away from palliative to preventative medicine.

I won't turn this review into a How to Train article, but, I will offer my quick advice. I have always been ambivalent towards Lance Armstrong personally, but I have admired how he reformed cycling training. (Also, I sometimes wonder if he remembers my rear derailleur exploding and the pulley sticking to his calf and then falling off to leave a grease mark.) When I started racing, the only training consisted of longer and harder rides. But, now, I recommend eating well (if the food comes in a plastic wrapper, that is probably not good), yoga or strecthing, weight training and cardio-vascular excercise. There is really no order of importance, all must be done to really get good physical health. I will leave mental health alone, but, it is no less important.

While I am probably preaching to the choir if you are reading this post, I really feel this Newsweek article represents a turning point in mainstream media and hopefully will be the first of many articles arguing for preventative medicine as opposed to the plethora of articles debating how to pay for bad health. And maybe us cyclists will get a few bike lanes out of the deal.