Where You Live Affects Your Fitness

During the course of your growing up years, you lived wherever your parents chose to live.  You didn’t give any thought to the health implications of the location your parents chose, or if they had chosen a place that was conducive to your physical, mental, and spiritual health.  Chances are your parents didn’t give it much thought either. Not until recently, has there ever been given any thought to the fact that where you live affects your level of fitness.  But it does, and it’s a piece of information that is sure to influence many generations to come.

            So how is this information compiled, and what can we learn from it?  The information is compiled based on statistical information from areas such as smog levels, pollution levels, water quality, government based fitness incentives, and recreational and fitness facilities available.  Generally, one of the major magazines published in the United States, will compile all this statistical data, and publish an article as a recreational guide to healthy cities.

            What do we learn from all this published information?  That where we live really does affect our health and well-being, and sometimes, there’s very little we can do about changing that fact.  Unless, of course, you want to move.

            Often, the greatest contributor to our health and fitness, via our outside environment, is the level of pollution we’re forced to live with on a daily basis. How do we absorb pollutants in our outside environment?  The most common way is through the air we breathe.  It is not the only way, however.  The water we drink, the homes we live in, and the cars we drive, all have the potential for unhealthy contaminants. 

            Our work environment at one time was a contributor to the pollutants we were exposed to, but thanks to greater Environmental Protection regulation, most of those dangers have been eradicated. 

            Past the pollutants contribution, the availability of health facilities, the amount of government support for health and fitness, and the availability of medical faculties also affects our health and wellness from a location standpoint.  If you live in a rural area with no direct access to health facilities, and there is no medical facility, your level of fitness and health will not compare to that of a person who lives in a more populated area that can offer those things.  The down side to the more populated area, of course, is a greater risk of air pollution.

            Some areas of this country are just fitness conducive. Places where the air is still free from pollutants, there is an availability of hiking, biking, and walking trails, and the medical and fitness facilities are numerous.  The problem with most of those places, however is that they are mostly of a recreational base, not manufacturing or otherwise industrialized, and jobs are not that numerous.

            What can you do about your own fitness concerns, based on where you live?  Make the most of where you are.  Educate yourself about the greatest fitness problems in your area, and do what you can to make corrections for your own fitness benefit.