OK, but you had me at "drinking"
By I was a little ambivalent about my vow to drink and exercise more in 2008, but as always, science has shown us the way:
LONDON (Reuters) – Drinking is healthy, exercise is healthy, and doing a little of both is even healthier, Danish researchers reported on Wednesday.
People who neither drink nor exercise have a 30 to 49 percent higher risk of heart disease than people who do one or both of the activities, the researchers said in the European Heart Journal.
“The main finding is there seems to be an additional beneficial effect of drinking one to two drinks per day and doing at least moderate physical activity,” said Morten Gronbaek of the University of Southern Denmark, who led the study.
Several major studies have found that light to moderate drinking — up to two drinks a day on a regular basis — is associated with a lower risk of heart disease, and some have also found this leads to a lower risk of some cancers.
But the Danish study, one of the largest of its kind to examine the combined effect of drinking and exercise, found there were additional protective effects gained from doing both.
Like a lot of folks, advancing age, parenthood, and a general sense of malaise have taken me to the brink of lardiness. Of greater concern that my visible state of disrepair, though, I simply feel less healthy than I did two or three years ago. My wife and I have been locked in a mild dispute over how best to resolve the problem; I’ve argued that by exercising more regularly and eating significantly fewer than 25 sandwiches a day, I can reach my health goals without sacrificing the nightly drink or two to which I’ve grown accustomed. I can’t imagine this research will add anything new to the debate, which is mostly non-empirical anyhow, but I suppose it can’t hurt.
My daughter, who will be two in April, has no clear advice on the matter, though she seems to enjoy watching her father drink his “apple juice.” And Henry, as always, doesn’t give a damn so long as he gets his time with the near-empty bottle.