Being Fit, Being Female

Julia Alleyne

As we launch into the 21st century we are witnessing the dawning of a women’s fitness movement unlike anything seen in previous years. Women’s health issues have taken a front seat in the arena of consumer-driven health information and in the delivery of lifestyle and wellness programming.

GENDER AND SPORT

Can women sharpen that competitive edge? Do women have killer instinct? Is female aggression natural? Spectators watching women compete at elite levels ask these questions. Why? Women are socialized to be the gentler and softer species outside the sport arena. When that killer instinct is turned on inside the arena, some love to see it, some do not.

The evolution of gender in sport psychology will be an important part of Active Woman editorial. In the first Olympiad in Greece there were no female participants. In the next Olympic games in Paris, France there were six. The 2000 Sydney games hosted over 4,000 female athletes in a multitude of sports including the non-traditional marathon runs and weightlifting. How difficult it must have been for those first women Olympians.

NEW ROLE MODELS

It is natural that we all look for role models and heroes to worship. For women there have not always been many to choose from. It is important for mothers to be role models for their daughters so that young women can appreciate and value lifelong physical activity for reasons other than competition. It has been said that sport builds more than muscle; it builds character.

FITNESS AND DISEASE

Beyond the cure for breast cancer is the importance of being a survivor and restoring a quality of life after treatment. Advances in rehabilitation and recovery led Dr. Don MacKenzie an exercise physiologist in British Columbia to training the first dragonboat team of breast cancer survivors. Prior to this the limits of physical activity after breast surgery were curtailed. This attitude promoted inactivity, lack of fitness and a sense that the "weaker sex" could not fully recover after surgery. Dragon-Boat training included aerobic, flexibility and strengthening components that were adapted in exercise progression, physical positioning and understanding of recovery stages of breast cancer. The empowerment of the dragon-boat movement is far greater than attaining a higher fitness level; it has boosted the self-esteem and motivation of many breast cancer survivors. This is a great example of a women's health need being serviced by the fitness revolution to enhance the overall well-being of women.

Consistent exercise habits including daily walking, aerobics three to four times a week including flexibility and strengthening components have been shown to decrease the onset of noninsulin dependent diabetes, reduce the incidence of breast cancer, reduce the severity of heart disease and reduce the incapacities of osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia. The key here is consistency through accumulated daily activity and diverse general aerobic exercise.

WORKPLACE WELLNESS
The women's workforce in North American has soared from approximately 15% of women in 1955 working outside their homes to 70% in 1995. Still, women overall have less financial freedom than men and women are balancing more family and work tasks than men leading to a significant time crunch. Time and money are the two most common barriers for women to attain consistent fitness habits.

SPORTS
What sports do women participate in? The most popular sports and fitness activities where women participate at greater rates than men are still the traditional non-contact sports such as swimming (5.6% versus 3.6%), walking, aerobics and cross-country skiing. There appears to be close to equal participation in activities such as alpine skiing, badminton, cycling, volleyball and curling. Women participate at a much lower rate in sports such as basketball, hockey, golf, baseball, tennis and weight lifting. Even with female participation rising, we still lag behind in the development of women coaches. Only 17% of our National Team coaches are women and they generally earn 50% less than their male equivalent coaching partners.

ACTIVE WOMEN/ACTIVE MEN
Statistics Canada has looked at the gender differences in physical activity between men and women and found that women participate less in regular physical activity (25% of women versus 43% of men) and less in competitive sport (7% of women versus 17% of men). Yet, if the fitness facilities are available to them, then their participation is almost equal. This statistic certainly supports the need for workplace wellness including fitness facilities and for health benefit packages to include fitness memberships.

50+
Exercise during the adult years can be pleasurable as well as meeting goals of weight maintenance, cardiovascular fitness and disease prevention. Women are afflicted with higher rates of depression and anxiety than their male counterparts and studies are increasingly showing the benefits of exercise in treatment of mental health issues. Weight training, aerobics and mind-body activity (i.e. yoga, tai-chi) can improve psychological functioning, communication, animation, personal interest, motivation and insight into her body image.

IMPROVING HEALTH: WOMEN vs MEN
How do women versus men choose to improve their health? The first step to improving health is the desire to do so. Fifty percent (50%) of women over the course of a one-year period will choose to improve their health versus forty-five percent (45%) of men. Men and women will equally choose to improve their nutrition and stop smoking but more women then men choose to start an exercise program (31% versus 27%). We now see a scenario where women make the link between exercise and health and they have the desire to implement but they are less successful at consistent exercise routines, they have fewer sports they are comfortable participating in and they have reduced access to fitness facilities.

PREGNANCY AND EXERCISE
Exercise during pregnancy and in the post-partum period has been proven beneficial in a growing number of studies focusing on the low risk pregnancy. Most studies suggest that exercise has no effect on the length of labour but may reduce the invasiveness of interventions such as oxytocin, forceps and cesarean section. One of the best documented benefits of exercise during pregnancy is a decrease in anxiety and depression and an increase in self-esteem.

GIRLS
Young girls and women are least active as a population. They face many barriers and challenges including: lack of role modeling and leadership, adjustments to life changes through pregnancy and menopause, child care needs and society pressures regarding body image and accepted norms. In the years of childhood and adolescence, young girls must pay particular attention to building bone density. A calcium rich diet combined with impact style exercise such as running or jumping is imperative to protecting her against osteoporosis in the later years. Seventy-five percent of bone density is built during the growing years. Young women who are involved in intense sport or avid exercise may be at risk for Female Athlete Triad Syndrome which is the presence of three inter-related factors: disordered eating, ammenorrhea and osteoporosis. While some young female exercisers need to be monitored for normal development, others need to be encouraged and motivated to set lifelong exercise habits.

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