Environment and exercise enhance health
consciousness
First in a three part series about
health and fitness in the Wood River Valley
By DANA DUGAN
and MATT FURBER
Express Staff Writer
Does an apple a day still keep the doctor
away? Maybe, maybe not, it depends on what else one does every day. What is
known is that health and fitness are intertwined, and that maintaining physical
health is imperative to having a happy life, not to mention a long one.
The focus on fitness is one reason many
people have settled in the Wood River Valley, which offers abundant access to
healthcare and fitness opportunities.
Although the valley has St. Luke’s Wood
River Medical Center with its state of the art diagnostic technologies as well
as the Hailey Medical Clinic, the Blaine Manor extended care facility and the
newly opened Ketchum Urgent Care office, people hereabouts tend to rebuff the
need for medical care.
After all, though life flight services to
regional hospitals in Boise and Salt Lake City are important, we’d much rather
not have to make use of them.
Nonetheless, as people strive to take full
responsibility for health care they still make visits to the doctor. The Hailey
Medical Clinic, for instance, with its 10 full-time health care providers,
manages 30,000 patient visits per year.
St. Luke’s WRMC in fiscal year 2001-2002
experienced more than 7,600 emergency room visits and took nearly as many
x-rays.
Getting beyond acute treatment for daily
fitness maintenance and therapeutic healing, the valley boasts so many athletic
trainers, yoga instructors, physical therapists and energy work instructors that
an eager athlete can almost get a workout just thumbing through the yellow
pages.
Health and fitness have been trendy so
long, most trainers today don’t even remember who Jack LaLanne is. But after all
the trends fat jiggler exercise machines, jogging, Jane Fonda, Martial Arts, Tae
Bo, Pilates, step classes and spinning, it has become obvious that if a program
works, never mind the latest trend. Just keep doing what works.
What is apparent is that exercise is about
individuality. Instincts, good judgment and motivation are the best methods to
staying active. What is also important is a base of health. Maintenance can
follow in many ways.
Yvette Hubbard, a certified trainer at the
Sun Valley Athletic Club, (the oldest club in the valley at 20 years) says,
"There are five elements to being fit, I believe, in equal measure: nutrition,
cardio-vascular fitness, muscular strength, muscular endurance and flexibility.
A healthy person should incorporate these five elements,"
People either live here because they love
recreating in the outdoors or fall in love with the recreational possibilities
because of the plethora of activities.
"Already competitive people come here and
then they feed off that adrenaline rush and others feed off that example,"
Hubbard says. "Fitness is a byproduct of that."
In a National Health and Nutrition
Examination Survey of Adults from 1988-1994, it was found that a greater
proportion of people in the Western states exercise, while the Northeast and
South have the lowest proportion of residents who exercise regularly.
Why is that?
Perhaps it’s the open space. Perhaps
people move to the West because they are adventurous and outdoorsy to begin with
and are looking for a place to express that part of themselves. Or maybe it’s
genetic. Pioneers who migrated West were hard working people, who may have
passed the outdoor recreation ethic down to their offspring.
Another reason could be the abundance of
negative ions in the Western air. These are odorless, tasteless, and invisible
molecules that are inhaled in abundance in certain environments such as the
mountains and on the water. Once they reach the bloodstream, negative
ions—oxygen atoms with an extra electron—are believed to produce biochemical
reactions that increase levels of the mood chemical serotonin, helping to
alleviate depression, relieve stress, and boost daytime energy. A normal ion
count in fresh country air is 2,000 to 4,000 negative ions per cubic centimeter
versus approximately 100 per cubic centimeter on the Los Angeles freeways during
rush hour.
In fact, according to a 2003 Outdoor
Industry Foundation's Business for Wilderness program, Western states had the
highest percentage of active outdoor people, led by Idaho at 87 percent followed
by Wyoming, Utah and Montana, where more than 80 percent of the population
participates in at least one outdoor activity.
The nationwide study examined 21 specific
human-powered activities, such as backpacking, fly-fishing, whitewater kayaking
and cross-country skiing.
Whatever the reason, one thing is certain
the Wood River Valley is a Mecca of health and fitness. Healing can come in many
forms, some require a healthy bank account, still others merely require a person
to simply step outside.