Latest news with #Eyler
The Independent
22-02-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Get motivated to exercise regularly like these gym rats in their 70s and 80s
You know you should develop a regular exercise routine, but you lack motivation. Promises to yourself are quickly broken, and you never establish enough of the workout habit to experience any rewards. Exercising as you age is important. It's not only good for physical health to help prevent falls or enable you to do basic tasks — exercise is also superb for the mind. 'If you want to be cognitively active, it is so important to be physically active,' explained Dr. Amy Eyler, a professor of public health at Washington University in St. Louis. 'There is a such a strong connection between these two behaviors.' Why make exercise part of my routine? First, regular exercise helps maintain bone density and muscle strength. It also lowers the risk of heart disease and certain types of cancer. For older people, regular exercise helps maintain strength and balance and allows them to live independently. Research also suggests the immune system may get a bump from physical activity. There is also a psychological component. Successfully completing a daily exercise can improve one's mood and sense of self-satisfaction. How to get started Getting into the habit of doing regular physical activity can be difficult for some. The motivation to get moving is different for everyone. Initially you'll need external motivation — I want to be able to play with my grandkids or keep driving the car — until you see results and the motivation shifts to internal, Eyler said. 'When you set a goal, you should ask yourself on a scale of 1 to 100, how confident am I that I can do this?' Eyler explained. 'It has to be over the 90% level of confidence or you're not going to do it. Lots of people set these goal too high and then fail." Build to your goals. 'Just walk whenever you can,' Eyler said. 'You can walk for 10 minutes pretty much anywhere — indoors, at work, at home.' And, if you're trying to encourage others, look for positive reasons rather than nagging. 'Telling someone they will be more independent if they take their blood pressure medicine is better than — take your blood pressure medicine,' she said. Here are some tips about how to start — and how to stay with it — from three gym rats between the ages of 77 and 86. All got started late and have stayed with it. All three work out with Dr. Irv Rubenstein, an exercise scientist who runs STEPS Fitness in Nashville, Tennessee. I always hated gym class Kathryn Dettwiller, 77, got pushed into exercising 34 years ago by her husband. 'I always hated gym class,' she said. 'I always hated getting down on the floor.' She works out in a gym twice a week with a trainer, which she said gives her added discipline and motivation. 'The external has become internal because I realize I need it,' she said. She cautioned beginners to expect some setbacks — minor injuries — and not to be discouraged. 'Try it as soon as your body starts playing out on you,' she said. 'It's like a game of Whack-A-Mole. One time your leg hurts, the next time it's your back.' It added structure to his life Rick Bolsom, 82, enjoys the structure of having a trainer. In his case, his wife got him started almost two decades ago and he's into a three-times-a-week routine. 'I kept doing it because I had a sense of feeling better,' he said. "The key to me was probably doing it with a trainer. The structure really helped me to continue with it. Now it's just become part of my life.' 'I couldn't imagine quitting it,' he added. 'I work out as vigorously as I did 15, 18 years ago. It turned out to be the smart thing to do.' Bolsom also added in the social aspect to training in a gym or studio. 'I retired a few years ago. You do miss the connectivity with people.' Flattery will get you everywhere Dr. Grover Smith, a retired radiologist, is 86 and still going strong. He attributes this partly to training regularly in a gym three times a week, a habit he didn't start until he was 74 and well into retirement. He was coaxed to go after several visits to his cardiologist. He said he went after the fourth time his cardiologist suggested it, although he was not having any specific heart problems. His plan was to go once to appease the cardiologist and that would be it. That was more than a decade ago. ' Medicine was basically my life and it was very time consuming,' Smith said. 'It was sometimes seven days a week and I didn't have time for a lot of other things.' He's not only fit, but now he also gets flattered. He tells the story about a recent visit to a doctor who, after looking at his charts, told him: 'Dr. Smith, you look 15 years younger than your age.' Smith laughed as he added the punchline. 'I would have told her to get her eyes examined — except she's an ophthalmologist,' he quipped.
Associated Press
22-02-2025
- Health
- Associated Press
Get motivated to exercise regularly like these gym rats in their 70s and 80s
You know you should develop a regular exercise routine, but you lack motivation. Promises to yourself are quickly broken, and you never establish enough of the workout habit to experience any rewards. Exercising as you age is important. It's not only good for physical health to help prevent falls or enable you to do basic tasks — exercise is also superb for the mind. 'If you want to be cognitively active, it is so important to be physically active,' explained Dr. Amy Eyler, a professor of public health at Washington University in St. Louis. 'There is a such a strong connection between these two behaviors.' Why make exercise part of my routine? First, regular exercise helps maintain bone density and muscle strength. It also lowers the risk of heart disease and certain types of cancer. For older people, regular exercise helps maintain strength and balance and allows them to live independently. Research also suggests the immune system may get a bump from physical activity. There is also a psychological component. Successfully completing a daily exercise can improve one's mood and sense of self-satisfaction. How to get started Getting into the habit of doing regular physical activity can be difficult for some. The motivation to get moving is different for everyone. Initially you'll need external motivation — I want to be able to play with my grandkids or keep driving the car — until you see results and the motivation shifts to internal, Eyler said. 'When you set a goal, you should ask yourself on a scale of 1 to 100, how confident am I that I can do this?' Eyler explained. 'It has to be over the 90% level of confidence or you're not going to do it. Lots of people set these goal too high and then fail.' Build to your goals. 'Just walk whenever you can,' Eyler said. 'You can walk for 10 minutes pretty much anywhere — indoors, at work, at home.' And, if you're trying to encourage others, look for positive reasons rather than nagging. 'Telling someone they will be more independent if they take their blood pressure medicine is better than — take your blood pressure medicine,' she said. Here are some tips about how to start — and how to stay with it — from three gym rats between the ages of 77 and 86. All got started late and have stayed with it. All three work out with Dr. Irv Rubenstein, an exercise scientist who runs STEPS Fitness in Nashville, Tennessee. I always hated gym class Kathryn Dettwiller, 77, got pushed into exercising 34 years ago by her husband. 'I always hated gym class,' she said. 'I always hated getting down on the floor.' She works out in a gym twice a week with a trainer, which she said gives her added discipline and motivation. 'The external has become internal because I realize I need it,' she said. She cautioned beginners to expect some setbacks — minor injuries — and not to be discouraged. 'Try it as soon as your body starts playing out on you,' she said. 'It's like a game of Whack-A-Mole. One time your leg hurts, the next time it's your back.' It added structure to his life Rick Bolsom, 82, enjoys the structure of having a trainer. In his case, his wife got him started almost two decades ago and he's into a three-times-a-week routine. 'I kept doing it because I had a sense of feeling better,' he said. 'The key to me was probably doing it with a trainer. The structure really helped me to continue with it. Now it's just become part of my life.' 'I couldn't imagine quitting it,' he added. 'I work out as vigorously as I did 15, 18 years ago. It turned out to be the smart thing to do.' Bolsom also added in the social aspect to training in a gym or studio. 'I retired a few years ago. You do miss the connectivity with people.' Flattery will get you everywhere Dr. Grover Smith, a retired radiologist, is 86 and still going strong. He attributes this partly to training regularly in a gym three times a week, a habit he didn't start until he was 74 and well into retirement. He was coaxed to go after several visits to his cardiologist. He said he went after the fourth time his cardiologist suggested it, although he was not having any specific heart problems. His plan was to go once to appease the cardiologist and that would be it. That was more than a decade ago. 'Medicine was basically my life and it was very time consuming,' Smith said. 'It was sometimes seven days a week and I didn't have time for a lot of other things.' He's not only fit, but now he also gets flattered. He tells the story about a recent visit to a doctor who, after looking at his charts, told him: 'Dr. Smith, you look 15 years younger than your age.' Smith laughed as he added the punchline.
Voice of America
06-02-2025
- Business
- Voice of America
Though China might fill aid void left by USAID, its own challenges could limit it
The U.S. foreign aid agency broadly shut down by the Trump administration has long been criticized by Beijing. But as USAID projects wind down, will Beijing step in to try to build influence? Some analysts say although China will want to fill the vacuum, its own economic problems could limit what it will do. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is now the acting director of U.S. Agency for International Development, said he will bring the agency's activities in line with the agenda of the new government. "These are taxpayer dollars, and we owe the American people assurances that every dollar we are spending abroad is being spent on something that furthers our national interest," he told reporters while visiting El Salvador earlier this week. USAID had an annual budget of more than $40 billion and managed aid programs around the world, including a China-related program that has become a target of criticism by the White House. On a "waste and abuse" fact sheet released on Feb. 3, the White House said USAID had given millions of dollars to EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S. organization working on protections against infectious disease. The organization has been accused of working with Wuhan Institute of Virology on coronavirus research that had caused the COVID-19 pandemic. Both EcoHealth Alliance and the Chinese government have rejected those accusations. Agency has framed funding as strategy In recent years, USAID has increasingly framed its funding for China-related programs as a strategy to contain China's global expansion through aid and investments. An archived page of USAID's now-closed website shows that the agency lauded its "Countering Chinese Influence Fund" as one of its "key accomplishments." The fund "will advance national-security goals" to "build more resilient partners that are able to withstand pressure from the CCP and other malign actors." Michael Schiffer, former USAID assistant administrator for Asia, told a congressional panel in 2023 that the agency had for more than a decade supported data collection on China's overseas investments through AidData, a research group at the College of William and Mary in the U.S. state of Virginia. The funding freeze has put at least one such USAID-funded project in financial trouble. Brian Eyler, a researcher at the Stimson Center in Washington, wrote in a public post on Facebook that his project, Mekong Dams Monitor, has difficulty continuing operation because of the freeze. "We are ordered to stop work on those grants for 90 days pending further review. And that means our Southeast Asia program might not be able to keep the lights on," he wrote. Eyler's project was launched by the State Department during the first Trump administration to study how dams built by China and other countries on the Mekong River in southeast Asia have negatively affected communities downstream. According to Eyler's post, the project received funding from both the State Department and USAID. Chinese state media had accused the project of smearing China. VOA Mandarin reached out to Stimson Center for more details but did not receive a response. On Wednesday, Rubio said the Trump administration is in the process of identifying programs that are exempted from the funding freeze. "This [is] not about ending foreign aid. It is about structuring it in a way that furthers the national interest of the United States," Rubio said during his multiday trip to Latin America. Critics of USAID USAID also has been a target of Beijing's ire. China's foreign ministry released a report last year accusing USAID programs of corruption and prioritizing the advancement of U.S. interests. The shutdown of USAID has been met with cheers and celebrations on the Chinese internet, where anti-U.S. narratives permeate. Many users praised Elon Musk, the billionaire and head of the Department of Government Efficiency, for closing the agency. Musk previously posted on X describing USAID as "a criminal organization" and that it is time "for it to die." USAID critics Critics of the funding freeze and the shuttering of USAID worry that Beijing will see this as an opportunity to fill the void left by the U.S. "China has spent trillions of dollars in numerous countries because it is interested in pulling them into its sphere of influence," U.S. Democratic Senator Chris Coons wrote in The Washington Post. Steven Balla, an associate professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., told VOA Mandarin he agrees with the assessment. But he said China's plan to expand foreign aid is likely to be hindered by its lingering domestic problems. "You think about youth unemployment; you think about the real estate bubble and so forth," he said. "That might make it difficult for the Xi administration to aggressively expand into new parts of the world because the U.S is pulling back." Some activists worry that even if China tries to fill the void, certain areas where there once were U.S. aid programs will not receive the same kind of funding, if at all. A former environmental lawyer in China who now lives in the U.S. told VOA Mandarin that, compared to U.S. aid programs, China's assistance is of a more transactional nature and seeks financial returns. She wants to remain anonymous because she fears harassment from Beijing. A 2021 report released by China shows that between 2013 and 2018, China had spent $376 billion on foreign aid, 45% of which went to Africa in areas such as agriculture, medical assistance, food supply, disease control, and climate change. The former environmental lawyer said if it is entirely left for China to provide aid, areas such as women's rights and natural resource management will lose a large portion of funding, if not entirely, because China is not interested in improving local governance. "There will certainly be a very severe impact on the African people," she said, "which isn't something you'll be able to see within just a day or two."
