Staying Healthy and Fit in Texas: High obesity Rates

Texas is continuously ranked near the top with some of the highest obesity rates around the country. Being near the top consistently on this list is not something any state should strive to be.

Texans’ high obesity rates affect their life span and quality of life, making it so that loved ones pass unexpectedly or have poor quality of life.

A way to combat this problem is by working out and staying fit. This change doesn’t have to be drastic to have impactful results.

Obesity is something that the entire world struggles with, regardless of where one goes, it has some effect on people. When looking closer at the issue from now a country standpoint, America is shown to have high obesity rates within it comparatively to other countries. Once again getting even closer on the issue Texas itself is a high contributor to the high rates within America. Kyle Dean, the Assistant Director of Fitness and Wellness.

“It is very serious in America and I say that because a lot of the research and the stats are showing us America, we are the winners of obesity.” Kyle Dean Assistant Director of Fitness and Wellness said. “If it was a competition, which it’s the worst competition ever, but we stand above the rest when it comes to the rest of the world in terms of the.”

Staying healthy and fit usually starts at a young age and how one grows up within their family. As a child being fed by the parents is dependent on what the parent feeds rather than what the child could want or even know about healthy eating habits. While this part of childhood is hard to have any control over the next big portion comes when a young adult attends college. Here they are given freedom like they’ve never known before and as such it is easy to develop unhealthy habits. Fortunately, though most colleges are aware of this fact and will often have programs and ways to prevent, help, or overcome the habits developed. Like as simple as getting active when possible, changing the eating habits that they developed along the way, and more often than not these programs and people are free for the students. Whereas the same programs and people would be very costly outside of college. Desiree Gomez, the Fitness and Wellness Student Supervisor has faced several challenges in this position but one unique to working with students in college.

“Challenges that I’ve seen students face, I think the biggest thing that I would say is time management.” Desiree Gomez, the Fitness and Wellness Student Supervisor said. “I think as we come into college, it really all comes down to learning how we can best manage our time between being a part time or full time student between having 1,2, 3 jobs and then also that aspect of how are we helping ourselves in the meantime. And putting ourselves at the forefront for our fitness and our health. So time management, what I said would is what I think is the biggest.”

An advantage about working out and getting into shape is that there is not one avenue to doing this. There is quite literally an endless amount of ways that one could look towards to do this. For the most part, it is the most well-known, and the place most start at is at a gym. This works well as gyms have an abundance of machines and equipment to work out and lose weight, their entire existence is about getting into shape and staying healthy. But, for several reasons, someone could want to switch it up and try to do something different.  One of the number of different ways could be sports or something like rock climbing, these different activities promote a healthy and active lifestyle that is essential to staying fit but can change from the mundaneness of lifting weights.

A benefit that can be seen about working out and going to gyms is that there is a large abundance of them that are usually located all around. They have locations that work for wherever someone needs it to be and works with commuting. Even more so they have gyms that are geared towards only specific things that the entirety of people are working on, whether that would be from straight weight lifting or rock climbing in a safe environment. And if working out in a gym the weight lifting does not have to be the only way to go about it but rather using multiple different equipment to add to the functionality of the actual workout. So not only will the workout help get into shape and stay fit but it will also help in daily lives or in special circumstances when needed.

When looking at these different ways to work out someone may see the alternatives like rock climbing as not as efficient as just going to the gym. But in reality, at times these workouts can be more intense than some of the lifting done at a regular gym offering great results. Either way though from the gym to climbing to sports, all these activities require a way to replenish the body in a healthy way of vitamins. Isaiah Vasquez-Flores, an instructor and manager at Armadillo Boulders rock climbing gym explains that rock climbing can be very beneficial for ones health and fitness.

“Yeah I’d say it’s a really good workout it really tricks you into being fit it tricks you into working out because it’s pretty full body pretty intensive it can have a lot of tension,” Isaiah Vasquez-Flores, an instructor and manager at Armadillo Boulders rock climbing gym said. “A lot of the strongest climbers I know all they do is climb and they’re in pretty great shape.”

One of the ways to do this is with a tasty itself is with a blended smoothie full of fruit or, veggies, or supplements.