Drinking Water in Winter

“I tend to forget drinking water even when it’s hot, and you expect me to remember to do that when it’s cold?”

Odds are that something similar came across your mind when you read the headline. No wonder – we’re very good at forgetting that we need to drink water. Even if we’re dying of thirst, there’s a good chance we won’t even notice it!

Everyone tells us when it’s hot, we should drink plenty of water. And while they’re right, that same rule applies to the times when it’s cold too. In winter, our water balance is easy to disrupt, if we don’t know what to do.

Our bodies need water for many purposes. Cooling down is only one of them. You need water to remove toxic waste from your body and to transport minerals in and out of the cells… just to name a few. You need to drink water every day no matter if you’re hot or not. Your body will need this water to keep itself running.

What happens if you don’t drink any water? The body takes that as a sign that you are living in an environment where there is little water. So it cuts down on its use. This makes you perform worse than normal, but at least you are alive. If you start drinking plenty of water, you will teach your body that there really is enough for it to keep going. After a few days, you will start getting thirsty more and more often. Your body will be working at full speed. So basically, we get enough water to survive from the food we eat. But if we are to feel energetic and good about ourselves, we need to drink water no matter if it’s summer of winter.

Posted by Troy Weaver, VP of Health & Wellness Operations, Y of Central Maryland

Youth Obesity

One of the most alarming trends in our country is Youth Obesity—a trend that has significant impact beyond just the weight of our community. Research is clear that poor nutrition and physical inactivity has broad reaching consequences. America’s childhood obesity rates have tripled in the last 30 years, exposing 9 million kids to a variety of potential long-term health consequences. Experts are concerned that this will be the first generation of American children who live sicker and die younger than the previous generation.

In every crisis, there are opportunities. At the Y of Central Maryland, we believe the opportunities in this crisis extend well beyond meeting the need for properly planned and implemented weight control programs. Research is clear that those who lead a healthy active lifestyle not only have lower incidence of health related diseases and disorders but are more productive in all aspects of their life. Additionally, healthy, physically active students actually perform better academically. Unfortunately, in an attempt to improve academic test scores, most school districts have dramatically limited physical education opportunities for students. Not only has this had devastating consequences from a health perspective, but from an academic perspective as well. One study done at Virginia Tech showed that cutting gym class and allocating more time to math, science and reading did not improve test scores. Yet research performed by the California Department of Education has consistently shown that students with higher fitness scores also have higher academic test scores.

In order to meet this need within our society, we offer a wide variety of programs for youth—from Youth Cardio and Teen Strength Training programs to Healthy Kids Day, Karate and Cheerleading, our objective is to find ways to help kids (and their families) get excited, and committed to a healthy active lifestyle. One such program which we’ve developed in conjunction with CareFirst and the Healthways Foundation, has shown a 32% weighted average improvement on six measures of fitness for enrolled children. This kind of holistic approach to overall well-being offers a major weapon in the fight against childhood obesity. This epidemic is symptomatic of other challenges we face as a community. Just as the medical community has discovered the benefits of treating the person vs. just the disease, the same logic holds true with the obesity epidemic.

Posted by Bob Brosmer, Chief Operating Officer, Y of Central Maryland

The Third Place

Welcome to my blog! I’m John Hoey, and I have had the privilege and responsibility of running the Y of Central Maryland for the past 3 and a half years. Prior to our board hiring me for this role, I spent my entire professional career in the for-profit, public-company business world. Although I never would have previously imagined that I would be doing what I now do for a living, I find that being the head of the Y of Central Maryland is one of the best and most compelling platforms one can have to work on two inextricably linked things: helping children and youth get ready for success in school and life; and improving the health, well-being and connectedness of a community. All of my professional and personal experience has led me to this place and time with a burning desire to work on behalf of this community on those things.

Say what? Isn’t the Y just a fitness club, a place to sweat, swim and burn some calories? Well, actually, while burning calories and being active are core to our mission (a charitable organization dedicated to developing the full potential of every individual through programs that build healthy spirit, mind and body for all), by no means are we a fitness club. We are, at our heart, a 160+ year old force that seeks to find ways to break down the ever-growing walls that divide us and bring the full range of the community together around activities that enrich, engage, challenge and build us in spirit, mind and body.

One of the most disturbing and destructive changes in our culture over the past fifty or so years has been the increasing number of attitudes and attributes that have come to separate people – by income, race, preferences, political views, education, you name it. We live in a time of so-called virtual communities, thinking that we are bringing people together. And yet, most of those communities are in fact a very narrow sub-strata of our society. We have actually balkanized the concept of community, and have turned it on its head. By it’s very definition, a community should and must be diverse. Yet, we are all constantly asked to declare which side of a dividing line we are on:

- Liberal or conservative
- Red state or blue state
- Black or white
- Nerd or jock
- College graduate or high school graduate
- Wealthy or poor
- Gay or straight
- Believer or atheist
- Democrat or Republican

…and the list goes on. Of course, differences are inevitable, and in fact, provide the kind of rich texture that our country has been built upon. So, why don’t we spend more time around those who are different than us? Why do we all too often avoid people who might think, act or feel differently than we do? We shop, work, live, recreate, and worship in very narrow worlds. Increasingly, we spend time on-line with “communities” that only further separate us from people who aren’t exactly like us.

So, what does this have to do with the Y? The answer: Everything!! In my blog, I will explore how the Y can be and is a “Third Place” in our community; a place in which those things that divide us melt away, and we can re-connect with neighbors and others in the community who we might ordinarily ignore.

Have I thoroughly confused you now? Didn’t you think the Y was about working out and I was really a business guy trying to make us bigger and more successful? If so, I welcome you to keep reading my blog in the coming weeks and months, and I will take you on a journey to the heart of the Y and what really motivates me about what I do.

Yours in Community,
John

Posted by John K. Hoey, President & CEO, Y of Central Maryland