Exercise is medicine

Christina Dieli-Conwright, Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Division of Population Sciences, Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, answers three questions posed by Discovery Museum CEO Marie Beam

Discovery Soundbites highlight expert voices on matters of importance to kids, families, and caregivers. Topics will range from parenting, emerging science research, child development, and accessibility to parent and child mental health, nature play, early learning, caregiver support, and more. 

To learn more about Discovery Museum and our work, visit us in person or at discoveryacton.org. Come play with us!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Well, hello and welcome to Discovery Sound Bites. My name is Marie Beam. Very proud to serve as CEO of the Discovery Museum in Acton, Massachusetts, where we invite children and their families to explore science and nature through play, inside and out. I'm here today with Christina Delli Conwright. Christina is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. She holds a secondary faculty appointment at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in the Department of Nutrition. Christina's research uses an exercise is medicine approach and is focused on testing personalized exercise programs to improve cancer outcomes. Christina, welcome and thank you so much for doing this with us. Thank you so much, Marie. I'm so thrilled to be here today. That's fantastic. So as you know, we have three questions that we ask of our guests. I'm going to jump right in. First question is From your perspective, what is the biggest opportunity now to improve the lives of kids and families?

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Excellent question. And I think it is there's a huge opportunity at this day in time to encourage physical activity and being creative with how we're integrating physical activity in one's lives, specifically thinking about utilizing green space that's available on a day-to-day basis, whether it's of course seasonally taking advantage as to what's available to us, or perhaps using what's within Owen's backyard. I think we have a unique opportunity in this part of the country to utilize that outdoor space and really embrace the different seasons in order to do so that is different from other parts of the country. I think there's also a lot of excitement around safety at which we're able to actually engage in utilizing our outdoor and our outdoor space, or often what we refer to as our built environment, with an increase in bike lanes that are popping up all around different parts of the New England area. There's also unique ways that we can engage youth in activity that's also very specific to the New England area. I see sailboats out on the Charles River from time to time with kids learning how to sail, certainly individuals doing crew where they learn how to do this at a young age by school field trips. I'm obviously speaking to outdoor sports, but there's also outdoor warm warmer weather sports, but there's also opportunities to engage in winter sports due to accessibility to this lovely outdoor space that we have here. So I think there's a just a huge opportunity for us to really capitalize on that and not think about taking it for granted or think about maybe hibernating when it gets a little bit too cold. Obviously, there's some cold that is too cold and less safe to go outside in, but especially for individuals who've lived here for quite a while, there's unique and creative ways that we can get outdoors and really focus on keeping technology at bay and reminding ourselves what it was like when we were younger, when we didn't have access to unlimited technology and just get back outside, use our hands, use our voices, and just be young again. And I think in the springtime we see a ton of that because people are so excited to get back outside. But I think just reminding ourselves of what a great opportunity we have out here to have clean, fresh air and clean, safer outdoor spaces to engage on. So I think that's again a huge opportunity for us to really continue to encourage and promote active living in youth today.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

That's amazing. And at Discovery Museum, we always say that it just begins with going outside to play, right? Absolutely. So our second question: what can we do at home or in our communities?

SPEAKER_01 3:47

I think what comes to mind first is leading by example. We know from physical activity and exercise research that when our youth have a role model, whether it be a parent, a teacher, a physician or healthcare provider that's modeling healthy behavior and physical activity, then they're more likely to engage in that. Obviously, similar to how you would parent and teach kids different types of skills, physical activity and appreciation of exercise and healthy living can absolutely be modeled. And I really think that's what needs to be us to be reminded of as a generation is for us as parents or caregivers or any individual that's has an opportunity to be in front of youth on a day-to-based day-to-day basis, excuse me, to put our devices down and step away from the technology and really get out there and lead by example, referencing some of the activities I mentioned earlier, or it could even be something just simple like going outside and bringing kids with us to do things like gardening or even just going to the park or et cetera. But really, again, taking advantage of our green space, putting down technology and leading by example really goes a long way. And again, the research supports that as well.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

So if you have trouble doing it for yourself, maybe do it for the kids in your lives.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

That's right. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Yeah. So what is one bright spot you are seeing, Christina?

SPEAKER_01 5:12

That's a great question. So this is speaking probably a little bit to the youth population that's getting a little closer to the teenage, but we're seeing more, I guess, retro thinking a little bit with technology, even that could even start to scale it down a little bit. Now I know social media starts to impact individuals as they really get to that teenage years, but I don't know if you've heard about more of those retro phones being popular again, landlines being popular again, things like that. I actually think is a positive bright spot because it wasn't that long ago when we didn't have such high excessive use of technology. Think back to when I was in college and I had to walk to office hours. That was the primary form of communication was that face-to-face interaction with a college professor. And that was in the early 2000s, which sounds like a long time ago. But it's not if you think in the grand scheme of things, of how rapidly technology has increased and how much sitting time has increased, especially for youth. I think about individuals who have newborn babies or younger babies and they have an iPad attached to the stroller already. So I think really taking a step back and thinking about let's embrace some cool trends that might have been active 20 plus years ago, 30 plus years ago, just like fashion, and really start to think about how we can make that old school retro thought kind of fun again. Because it's certainly out of touch for kids these days, but not for many of us who have sort of lived in both that pre-digital and digital generation. So I think it is uh it might be small, but I think it's a bright spot to sort of see the fun in some of these sort of retro adoptions to technology. Love that.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

So instead of feeling behind all the time, I could actually be ahead of the curve. Right, right. Christina, thank you so much for doing this. Christina Daly Conwright, so grateful to you for joining us today and sharing your wisdom with us. I also thank everyone for listening and special thanks to our generous sponsors for making Discovery Sound Bites possible. If you'd like to learn more about Discovery Museum and our work, you can find us at discoveryacton.org. Come play with us.