Nearly half of all Americans regardless of age and sex are becoming involved in the "exercise surge."
To size up the significance of this new American approach to fitness, JAMA MEDICAL NEWS talked with Donald L. Cooper, MD, director of Student Health Services and team physician at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater. A trainer for more than seven years before he went to medical school, Cooper also was the last physician to chair the AMA's Committee on the Medical Aspects of Sports before it was disbanded in January 1977.
The 50-year-old Cooper himself briskly walks at least 4 km within a half-hour period on one or more occasions daily, shuns elevators in favor of stairs, and makes it a point to "get up from his desk and move around a lot."
Asked whether the exercise surge will last, Cooper concedes that Americans seem to have a short attention span. So the