Question

I played high school football and I knew I was in real good shape and had a lot of muscle. After high school, my football days were over. My freshman year in college took some adjustment, even more so being away from home and all my buddies. I wasn’t exercising and gained 12 pounds that year. At 192 pounds, I still thought I was in pretty good shape. My sophomore year I stopped at the school’s annual health and fitness fair during the fall semester. There I had my body fat checked. It turned out to be 26.5 percent. I always thought I was pretty fit, and I wasn’t happy to be rated “overweight.” That one body fat test motivated me to enroll in the fitness and wellness course. In class, I learned how to set up a good aerobic and strength-training exercise program and eat better, and I learned about the value of increasing daily physical activity. At the end of the semester I had lost only 8 pounds, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had also gained 7 pounds of lean body mass (in essence, I lost 15 pounds of body fat) and my body fat decreased to 19.6 percent.

Critical Thinking Questions

1. List three factors that probably contributed to David’s weight gain.

2. Why might it be the case that some people who never had to worry about their weight in high school end up struggling with their weight in college (or later adulthood)?

3. Receiving the results of a fitness test or a body composition assessment that show that you are not where you would like to be can be a motivator for change. What other motivators have you experienced that made you decide to get healthier or achieve better fitness?

4. In addition to planned exercise, such as jogging or working out at a gym, what are some ways that you can incorporate more physical activity into your daily life?

Answer 1

1. In the given case of David three factors that contributed to his weight gain are :-

a. A new enviroment away from home and his usual group of friends broke his old habits of being active and working out regularly.

b. A new place can also lead to formation of a lot of stress hormone that can lead to gain of weight and also ill habits like eating wrong that finally leads to weight gain as well

c. Playing football was a fun way to be active and in shape, the stoppage of that and his illusion of not being too bad in shape when he started gaining weight lead to continued weight gain.

2. A major reason could that the busy schedule makes no time for exercise and physical activity. Also wrong eating habits and the release of stress hormones lead to fat accumulation.

3. A few other motivators to lose weight in my opinion are :-

- The desire to look physically a certain way is a very common motivator .

- The desire to be mobile and flexible added to not gain a obeseity related disease like diabetes works too.

4. A few other way to add physical activity to our daily lives other than scheduled workouts :-

Walking to college, office and to other short distances should be taken on foot rather than a transport.

To take the stairs instead of the elevator or the escalator.