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By Melissa Tennen, HealthAtoZ writer
Sitting at the computer, sitting in front of the television, sitting in the car.
Sitting and sitting and sitting and...
Sound like you? Then, sit tight. The National Academies' Institute of Medicine (IOM) says you should exercise at least an hour a day if you want to maintain health and body weight.
Relax! It's not as bad as it seems.
You can help keep those hips trim if you also follow a healthy diet, the IOM says. For the first time, the IOM outlined ranges for macronutrients such as proteins, fats and carbohydrates, as well as recommendations to cut saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol as much as possible. Trans fats, which are not mentioned on nutrition labels, are in cookies, crackers and fast foods. They offer no health benefit and raise LDL (bad cholesterol).
Adults need 45 percent to 65 percent of their daily calories from carbohydrates, no more than 25 percent of calories from added sugars such as soft drinks and candy, 20 percent to 35 percent of calories from fats, and 10 percent to 35 percent of calories from protein. Also, adult men 50 and younger need 38 grams of fiber a day and adult women 21 grams a day.
Fat should be 20 to 35 percent of calories per day. But very low fat intakes and too many carbohydrates can lower good cholesterol and raise triglyceride, causing an increased risk of heart disease, the panel said.
"Americans have had such a fear of fat for so many years. There is no reason to cut out all our fat.... The bottom line is calories," said John Foreyt, Ph.D., director of Clinical Research Behavioral Medicine Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and a spokesman for the American Obesity Association (AOA).
Earlier dietary guidelines called for eating plans with 50 percent carbohydrates and 30 percent or less of fat.
Get moving!
Adults and children should exercise an hour each day by doing things like gardening and taking the stairs, say the new recommendations called Dietary Reference Intakes. The hour is double the daily goal of 30 minutes suggested by the 1996 Surgeon General's report.
Roughly translated, a 30-year-old woman who is 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 111 to 150 pounds should consume between 1,800 and 2,000 calories a day if she lives a sedentary lifestyle. However, if she is an active person, her recommended caloric intake increases 2,500 to 2,800.
Eat your veggies
But the nutrition basics are intact, according to Katherine Tallmadge, R.D., author of "Diet Simple" and an American Dietetic Association spokeswoman. For instance, people still need a diet high in fruits and vegetables--five of each every day--and low in saturated fats.
As it is, urging people to eat better and exercise is an uphill battle. Nearly 80 percent of Americans do not eat the recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables and three servings of dairy, say the American Cancer Society and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Tallmadge cautions the diet is not designed to lose weight. Rather it is a way for a healthy person with a body mass index of 18 to 25-a typically normal weight-to stay fit and prevent diet-related disease, she said.
The 21-member panel examined thousands of studies linking excessive or inadequate consumption of fats, carbohydrates and protein with increased risk for obesity, heart disease, diabetes and other chronic illnesses. Some 30 illnesses are related to weight with obesity being the second leading cause of preventable deaths in this country, according to the AOA.
"The guidelines are a wake-up call," Foreyt said. "It's silly to see how sedentary we have let ourselves become."
A downward spiral
At least 10 percent of all children 6 to 11 years are overweight, and more than half of adults are overweight or obese. A recent study from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) said many teen girls aren't physically active, a warning sign that Americans' health is worsening. Nearly 60 percent of African-American girls and 30 percent of white girls studied do not exercise at all. And experts say 60 percent of the American population is sedentary.
That NHLBI study, says Eva Obarzanek, Ph.D., a research nutritionist for NHLBI, shows a downward spiral.
"You need to establish healthy habits in childhood," she says, warning adults who grew up inactive have a tougher time with establishing good exercise habits.
But you don't have to huff and puff on the track for an hour. It's just walking to your co-worker's desk instead of e-mailing, taking those two flights of stairs instead of the elevator or parking your car as far away as possible from your destination.
"It's looking in your every day life for excuses to exercise," Foreyt of the AOA said.
This article was reviewed and updated June 2007.
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