Need some incentive to get out and ride?

Need some incentive to get out there and ride? Try these conclusions, from a recent Journal of the American Medical Association issue on obesity as summarized in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

• Researchers found 63% of men and 55% of women [in the U.S.] overweight or obese, meaning they had a body mass index (BMI) of 25 or more.
  
  
• Low cardiorespiratory fitness was as important as other cardiovascular disease risk factors, such as Type II diabetes, high blood pressure and smoking, as a predictor of premature death in overweight and obese men.
  
  
• Overweight and obese women who took part in an 18-month, home-based exercise program, primarily brisk walking, lost more weight the more they exercised.
  
  Those who exercised the most, more than 200 minutes a week, lost an average of 28.8 pounds.
  
  
• A recent study of 50,000 nurses published in the American Medical Journal recently showed that time sitting in front of a TV was the best predictor of obesity.
  
  
• Requiring third- and fourth-graders to take part in a six-month program to reduce television, videotape and video game use may be a promising way to avert childhood obesity.
  
  
• [O]pportunities to burn calories have decreased in the face of more TV watching by children; a reduction in physical education classes; more neighborhoods without sidewalks; an increasingly automated workplace; more labor-saving machines for household chores; and increased use of the car in place of walking or bicycling.