Sitting in your car in a drive thru window is the new smoking!

 In a new study in the British Medical Journal it was found that between 1980-2010 people in Cuba were significantly healthier during the economic crisis from 1991-1995 when gas and food access were severely limited and people were forced to eat less and walk/bicycle more. Following the resolution of the economic crisis in Cuba the percentage of active adults declined from 80% to 50%, the average person gained 12 pounds, the percentage of obese adults increased by 20%, and diabetes rates almost doubled! Again, it's not surprising that increasing the amount we exercise and reducing the amount that we eat greatly improves our overall health.  I think that it is human nature to conserve energy and find easier ways of doing things such as calling someone from your car instead of parking, walking to their front door, ringing the doorbell and walking back to the car. However, I believe that in the next few years we are going to see more and more studies that reveal that our technological advances are in some ways ruining our health. We are living longer because of advances in medicine but in order to enjoy our prolonged lives we must stay active and the more we can leave our cars behind and take a few extra minutes to walk the better we will be. It is worth clicking through to check out the the BMJ article for a really cleverly designed and thoughtful medical study!