Cooper Quarterly W I N T E R
N E W S L E T T E R
THE COOPER INSTITUTE
Our strong Texas economy has been a beacon for corporate relocations across the state. But if we want to continue this growth, we have to make sure our workforce is prepared for the highly-skilled jobs of the future. Our workers are on track to be less healthy, less educated and less competitive, making our businesses less productive and profitable. To combat this and mitigate rising healthcare costs, we must make health and wellness a top priority. Research from The Cooper Institute and other academic bodies show that student fitness directly correlates to student success. It makes sense then that lawmakers and business leaders should embrace policies that promote fitness and incentivize healthy habits today to build a healthier generation tomorrow.
TEXAS LEGISLATIVE AGENDA Founded in Dallas in 1970, The Cooper Institute has a vested interest in the health of our home state.
Building a Healthier Generation The 2019 Texas Legislature is in full swing, and The Cooper Institute is keeping a close eye on all things related to health and wellness. Founded in Dallas in 1970, The Cooper Institute has a vested interest in the health of our home state. Our research shows the long-range physical, mental and economic impact of poor health. While Texas is thriving economically, surging healthcare costs could change that trajectory for everyone if we don’t act now to improve public health statewide.
We must ensure that we are building the workforce of the future - one that is highly skilled and productive. The solution? Improve the health and wellness of our children today so they can become healthy, productive workers tomorrow.
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Bob S. Shapard
The Cooper Institute Advocacy Chairperson Oncor, Board of Directors Chairman
Nearly 40 percent of adults and 20 percent of school-aged children are obese in the United States. Here in Texas, it’s 33 percent for adults and 15 percent, respectively, making us the 14th most obese state in the country. But according to the recent Beyond ABC report by Children’s Health, obesity rates for students in Dallas County have gone down by 29 percent since 2014, proving that change can happen. Even more alarming are the rising rates of diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, arthritis and obesityrelated cancer - all conditions that can be prevented, delayed or managed with regular exercise and improved eating habits. Fitness can also help ward off mental health issues that obese children are more likely to suffer from like social isolation, depression and lower self-esteem. Texas is one of six states that require the use of FitnessGram by The Cooper Institute to assess the overall physical health of its students. Additionally, FitnessGram is the national test of the Presidential Youth Fitness Program, measuring the fitness levels of over 10 million students across the country in nearly 20,000 schools. Our goal is to have FitnessGram adopted by all 50 states to improve student fitness across the country. Recently, FitnessGram has seen some significant upgrades. Our new student reports make it easy for families to understand what is being
measured and gives an overall picture of a student’s physical health. We also offer FitnessGram materials in both English and Spanish, helping us reach students and families across increasingly diverse backgrounds.
“Assessment tools like FitnessGram give us the data on their progress so we can make the best instructional decisions for our students’ health,” said Dr. Michael Hinojosa, superintendent of Dallas ISD in a recent interview with The Cooper Institute in the Dallas Business Journal. “There is no doubt in our minds that whole-child health leads to whole-child success. We must focus our efforts on making our children healthier and more active.” The Cooper Institute Legislative Agenda continued on page 4...
The Cooper Institute Fit for the Future Top Priorities • Preserve and advocate for comprehensive physical fitness assessments
• Preserve and promote evidence-based curriculum that enhances
• Ensure public/private funding is secured for implementation and
• Explore opportunities to advance The Cooper Institute’s research,
and evaluation statewide in all public schools.
sustainability of statewide physical fitness assessments.
• Strengthen quality physical education standards at the federal, state
and local level.
physical education and health programs in public schools.
science and programs to positively impact the wellbeing of children and adults through public health policies.
IS TOO MUCH EXERCISE DANGEROUS? Study shows that extreme exercise does not increase risk of death from heart disease “The known benefits of regular physical activity in the general population include decreased mortality, heart disease, diabetes, and many other medical conditions, which reminds us how important it is to participate in regular physical activity.” - Dr. Laura DeFina
Laura F. DeFina, MD, FACP
President and Chief Executive Officer, Chief Science Officer The Cooper Institute®
Athletes come in all forms, from the professional athlete to the everyday runner. We know regular exercise is good for us, but there has been a lingering question about how much is too much. When it comes to the heart, can too much exercise actually be dangerous? Researchers from The Cooper Institute and UT Southwestern Medical Center collaborated on a study of highly active individuals, now published in JAMA Cardiology. To find out if too much exercise increases the risk of heart disease and death with early hardening of the arteries. “The current study shows no increased risk of mortality in high-volume, high-intensity athletes who have coronary artery calcium,” said Dr. Laura DeFina, President and CEO and Chief Science Officer for The Cooper Institute and first author of the study. “Certainly, these highly active people should review their cardiovascular disease risk with their primary care doctor or cardiologist, but there is no reason to think they can’t continue exercising at high levels.” Coronary artery calcification (CAC) is a footprint of atherosclerosis, a disease in which plaque builds up in the arteries and gives rise to heart attack and stroke. While the majority of the highly active people in the study had low levels of coronary calcium, their risk of having CAC was 11 percent greater than those who exercised less. However, researchers determined that higher calcium levels did not raise their risk for cardiovascular or all-cause mortality. “The question has never been whether exercise is good for you, but whether extreme exercise is bad for you. For the past decade or so, there’s been increasing concern that high-volume, high-intensity exercise could injure the heart. We found that high volumes of exercise are safe, even when coronary calcium levels are high,” said Dr. Benjamin Levine from UT Southwestern Medical Center. Dr. Levine is a Professor of Internal Medicine and Director of the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine, a collaboration between UT Southwestern and Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.
Ben Levine, MD
Professor of Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine (IEEM) UT Southwestern Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas
Researchers from The Cooper Institute and UT Southwestern studied data from the Cooper Center Longitudinal Study. Over 21,000 generally healthy men, ages 40 to 80 and without cardiovascular disease, were followed for mortality between 1998 and 2013.
The participants, a majority of them in middle age, reported their physical activity levels and underwent coronary calcium scanning. Most were predominantly runners, but some were cyclists, swimmers, or rowers. Some even trained in three of these sports. An exercise routine of this level may look sometime like this:
• Running 6 miles/hour for 1 hour, 5 days/ week • Walking 3.5 miles/hour for 2 hours, 7 days/week • Biking 10-12 miles/hour for 1 hour, 7 days/week • Swimming 1 hour 15 min, 7 days /week “The known benefits of regular physical activity in the general population include decreased mortality, heart disease, diabetes, and many other medical conditions which reminds us how important it is to participate in regular physical activity as recommended by the 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines,” said Dr. Laura DeFina. The updated Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommends 150-300 minutes per week of moderateintensity aerobic physical activity or 75-150 minutes per week of vigorous intensity. “The takeaway from this study is that it is safe to exercise at high levels, even if you have clinically significant coronary calcium,” said Dr. DeFina. “Exercise is still the best preventive medicine.”
“Exercise is still the best preventive medicine.” - Dr. Laura DeFina
Dallas may not have won the bid for Amazon HQ2, but business and community leaders across the state are already learning and looking ahead to prepare Texas for the next opportunity. Our state has much to offer, including a thriving economy, relatively low cost of living, and plenty of available real estate, but our people are always our greatest asset. The Cooper Institute is committed to building a better future, for Texas and for the rest of the country, by building healthier communities today. One area of concern is whether or not we have enough uniformed personnel to keep our communities and our country safe. Nearly 75% of young adults are not fit for military service due to weight, fitness, criminal history and other factors. This can also mean that they are not fit to be first responders. Our goal is to help raise kids that are healthy and strong enough for any kind of service at home or abroad.
BUILDING HEALTHIER COMMUNITIES
“[Children] are the future of this police department and they are our prospective police officers,” said Dallas Police Chief Renee Hall. “We have programs in place that encourage physical fitness and community engagement with our youth and we are committed to expanding those efforts.”
It starts with the health and wellness of our children, and it all started right here in Texas. In 1982, The Cooper Institute piloted the FitnessGram program in Richardson ISD with support from Campbell Soup Company to instill healthy habits early.
As the national test for the Presidential Youth Fitness Program, FitnessGram is the most widely used youth fitness assessment in the country, helping measure the physical fitness and aerobic capacity of more than 10 million students in 20,000 schools. Physical fitness assessments, like FitnessGram, give us a true picture of their overall health and ensure that our young adults are ready for service and ready for life. Healthy, active families build healthy, active communities. Business leaders, school leaders, legislatures, and The Cooper Institute can all work together to set students up for success in school and as a part of our future workforce. Their health and their success today is what our communities need to have healthy, productive and highly-skilled workers tomorrow. To learn more about our vision for building healthier communities, check out our recent publication from the Dallas Business Journal and the work we are doing in Dallas. Read or download it from the Issue app or at bit.ly/BuildingDallasTogether.
Screen time is detrimental to whole child health and vision The lack of physical activity and abundance of screen time are two of the biggest obstacles to good health that our children face.
Too much screen time can also have a detrimental effect on the overall physical health of our children. Today’s children are spending more and more time in front of a screen, much of it in the name of learning. In 2010, just over 28 percent of the world’s population was affected by nearsightedness and is expected to rise to nearly 50 percent by 2050. Additionally, computer vision syndrome is a real problem as kids 8-14 years old spend six to nine hours per day on digital devices.
How to decrease screen time and increase physical activity: Photo Credit: Jasmin Merdan/Getty Images
Today’s students are less active than ever before. A recent study in Preventive Medicine showed that American 19 year-olds are as inactive as the average 60 year-old. As a result of both inactivity and excessive screen time, childhood obesity is on the rise leading to conditions like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, poor self-esteem, lack of socialization skills, and mental health problems as well as other physical problems like myopia. Sitting too much can be considered as dangerous of a risk factor for health as smoking, while excessive screen time is leading to a dramatic increase in nearsightedness. According to the Vision Impact Institute, physical activity can improve whole child health and vision.
Setting healthy limits and getting regular physical activity improves whole health and vision for the whole family. • Find out how much screen time students get at school or daycare. • Set limits on screen time at home. • Designate a few screen-free days each week. • Encourage kids to play outside and take frequent breaks. • Set screen-free zones in the bedroom or at the dinner table. • Model behavior by limiting your own screen time. • Make physical activity part of your family’s regular schedule. • Challenge your family to go Screen-Free from April 29 - May 5.
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Inside this Issue: Cooper Quarterly Newsletter The Cooper Institute Legislative Agenda
Building Healthier Communities
Our research has helped shape policy and changed lives, but the fight isn’t over.
The Cooper Institute is committed to building a better future, for Texas and for the world, by building healthier communities today.
Is too much exercise dangerous?
Screen time is detrimental to whole child health and vision
Study shows that extreme exercise does not increase risk of death from heart disease.
The lack of physical activity and abundance of screen time are two of the biggest obstacles to good health that our children face.
The Cooper Institute Legislative Agenda (cont.)
The Cooper Institute supports all initiatives to keep or improve physical education at every grade level. The new Physical Activity Guidelines recommend that children six and older should have at least 60 minutes per day of moderate to vigorous aerobic activity as well as muscle and bone strengthening activities. Unfortunately, physical education and activity time is not consistently offered in every school district or at every grade level.
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This is also the birthday of our founder, Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper, who pioneered aerobic research and led Texas to be the first state to accept FitnessGram as the statewide student fitness assessment. Our vision is to continue using evidence-based research from FitnessGram to improve student health and put them on track for a lifetime of healthy habits.
For nearly 50 years, The Cooper Institute has proven through scientific research that exercise improves health across the lifespan.
But it isn’t just about health; it’s about success. Research from The Cooper Institute and other entities show that students who are physically fit perform better in school, have higher reading and math scores, fewer behavioral problems and miss fewer days of school. That means that our students will be more successful in academics and in life.
The Cooper Institute digital publication are now available
On March 4, The Cooper Institute will March Forth to the Capitol to show the 86th Texas Legislature the importance of building a healthier generation.
Our research has helped shape policy and changed lives, but the fight isn’t over. By improving student health today, we will ensure that Texas children are the healthy, productive, and highly-skilled workers of tomorrow and WELL. Into the Future.
FEATURED LECTURER: MARGARET SPELLINGS, TEXAS 2036
EDUCATIONAL THOUGHT LEADER AND PUBLIC POLICY EXPERT
Coming Soon... SPRING 2019
J oin The Coop e r Ins titute for a s pecial evening with Ma r ga re t Sp e lli ng s , former pres ident of the Univers ity of Nor th C a rolina sys tem and Chief Domes tic Policy Advis or under Pre sid e nt Ge or ge W. Bus h. S pelling s now repres ents Texas 2036, a nonp a r tisa n initiative to ens ure the long -term s uccess of Texas through d a ta - d riven, long -range policy development. FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT AMY JOHNSON AT AJOHNSON@COOPERINST.OR OR 214.543.6533
