TEXTE

LA PARISIENNE

Il n’est pas nécessaire d’être née à Paris pour avoir le style da la Parisienne. Avoir l’attitude made in Paris est plus un état d’esprit. Être rock et jamais bourgeoise par exemple. La Parisienne ne tombe jamais dans le piège des tendances: les laisser infuser et s’en servir à bon escient, voilà sa recette secrète ! Et garder toujours un objectif: s’amuser avec la mode. Elle suit quelques règles, mais aime bien les transgresser aussi, ça fait partie du style.

En ce qui concerne la beauté éternelle qu’on lui attribue, la Parisienne ne fait pas attention aux rides parce qu’il y a des avantages à vieillir: on apprécie le moment présent, on écoute les autres, on relativise. Cela ne veut pas dire qu’elle laisse tomber sa beauté. Elle a même quelques petites astuces qui peuvent faire office d’élixir de longue vie. En voici quelques-unes: être soignée; sentir bon; avoir de belles dents; sourire; être indulgente; être plus cool; être moins égoïste; être amoureuse d’un homme, d’un projet, d’une maison, ça a un effet lifting; faire les choses qui nous ressemblent, ça apporte de la « zénitude »; accepter qu’il y a des jours sans et profiter des jours avec!

Même si la Parisienne mange souvent des sushis, c’est dans les bistrots et restos qu’elle vient avec ses copines disserter sur Bardot et Beauvoir. Le café de la Flore, par exemple, est totalement associé à Paris, c’est presque un cliché. C’est aussi le coeur de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, dans le Quartier Latin, donc une mentalité. Il évoque les existentialistes mais surtout un esprit français: rebelle, provocateur, jovial, généreux et anticonformiste. Souvent un aéropage de gauche comme la rive où il se trouve.

Dans le total de ses attitudes, la Parisienne sait qu’il n’y a pas que le style dans la vie et qu’il y a aussi la façon de voir la vie. C’est ainsi qu’elle a une manière bien à elle de vivre sa ville et adopte des attitudes pour faire « locale », telles que connaître un lieu – presque – secret, visiter les musées hors circuit, fréquenter les librairies anciennes et s’expatrier en restant intra-muros. Voilà un peu de la vraie Parisienne.

Adapté du livre La Parisienne, Ines de la Fressange et Sophie Gachet, 2010, Flammarion.

TEXTO

CONFIRMAN UNA ESPECIE “HERMANA” DE LOS NEANDERTALES

En marzo de 2010, un extraño fósil salió por primera vez a la luz pública. Encontrado dos años antes en la remota cueva siberiana de Denisova, en los montes Altai, se trataba de un fragmento del dedo meñique de una niña (o de un niño) de unos siete años de edad que habitó en esa región hace más de 50.000 años. En el mismo lugar se encontraron también varios artefactos y herramientas y, algo más tarde, dos piezas dentales.

Los restos eran demasiado escasos como para determinar, por su morfología, la especie humana a la que pertenecían. Así que terminaron en Leizpig (Alemania), en manos de Svante Pääbo, director del Instituto Max Planck de Antropología Evolutiva y uno de los mayores expertos mundiales en ADN fósil.

Pääbo, el investigador que logró secuenciar el genoma del hombre de Neandertal, consiguió extraer del hueso del dedo varias muestras de ADN mitocondrial, un material genético que no se encuentra en el núcleo de las células, sino repartido en diversos orgánulos (mitocondrias) del citoplasma celular y que sólo se transmite de madres a hijas. Por eso bautizó el fósil como "Mujer X".

Los resultados del análisis genético del homínido de Denisova supusieron una sorpresa mayúscula para los investigadores. De hecho, su ADN mitocondrial no coincidía con el de los neandertales, como se suponía en un principio, y tampoco con el de los hombres modernos, nuestra propia especie. Por el contrario, las diferencias genéticas eran suficientemente profundas como para pensar en un grupo completamente nuevo.

De inmediato, Pääbo y su equipo empezaron a trabajar para obtener, y secuenciar, ADN nuclear del pequeño dedo infantil. Un material imprescindible para confirmar (o desmentir) el "mensaje" sugerido por el ADN mitocondrial del fósil. Hoy, en un artículo que publica la revista Science, el misterio se desvela por fin. Y se confirma lo que los científicos sospechaban: la "mujer X" perteneció a una especie humana desconocida hasta ahora. Una especie que hunde sus raíces en la noche de los tiempos y que está muy emparentada con los neandertales, con los que comparte un ancestro común. «La secuenciación genética muestra que los neandertales y los denisovanos son grupos hermanos, que se separaron de una población ancestral común después de escindirse de los humanos modernos», explicó David Reich, otro de los científicos implicados en la investigación.

José Manuel Nieves. Periódico ABC – España. Texto adaptado.

TEXT

What would it take to persuade you to exercise? A desire to lose weight or improve your figure? To keep heart disease, cancer or diabetes at bay? To lower your blood pressure or cholesterol? To protect your bones? To live to a healthy old age?

You’d think any of those reasons would be sufficient to get Americans exercising, but scores of studies have shown otherwise. It seems that public health experts, doctors and exercise devotees in the media — like me — have been using ineffective tactics to entice sedentary people to become, and remain, physically active.

For decades, people have been bombarded with messages that regular exercise is necessary to lose weight, prevent serious disease and foster healthy aging. And yes, most people say they value these goals. Yet a vast majority of Americans — two-thirds of whom are overweight or obese — have thus far failed to swallow the “exercise pill.”

Now research by psychologists strongly suggests it’s time to stop thinking of future health, weight loss and body image as motivators for exercise. Instead, these experts recommend a strategy marketers use to sell products: portray physical activity as a way to enhance current well-being and happiness.

“We need to make exercise relevant to people’s daily lives,” Michelle L. Segar, a research investigator at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan, said in an interview. “Everyone’s schedule is packed with nonstop to-do’s. We can only fit in what’s essential.”

Dr. Segar is among the experts who believe that people will not commit to exercise if they see its benefits as distant or theoretical. “It has to be portrayed as a compelling behavior that can benefit us today,” she said. “People who say they exercise for its benefits to quality of life exercise more over the course of a year than those who say they value exercise for its health benefits.”

Her idea for a public service advertisement to promote exercise for working women with families: A woman is shown walking around the block after dinner with her children and says, “This is great. I can fit in fitness, spend quality time with my kids, and at the same time teach them how important exercise is.”

Based on studies of what motivates people to adopt and sustain physical activity, Dr. Segar is urging that experts stop framing moderate exercise as a medical prescription that requires 150 minutes of aerobic effort each week. Instead, public health officials must begin to address “the emotional hooks that make it essential for people to fit it into their hectic lives.” “Immediate rewards are more motivating than distant ones,” she added. “Feeling happy and less stressed is more motivating than not getting heart disease or cancer, maybe, someday in the future.”

In a study of 252 office workers, David K. Ingledew and David Markland, psychologists at the University of Wales, found that while many began to exercise as way to lose weight and improve their appearance, these motivations did not keep them exercising in the long term. “The well-being and enjoyment benefits of exercise should be emphasized,” the researchers concluded.

Dr. Segar put it this way: “Physical activity is an elixir of life, but we’re not teaching people that. We’re telling them it’s a pill to take or a punishment for bad numbers on the scale. Sustaining physical activity is a motivational and emotional issue, not a medical one.”

Other studies have shown that what gets people off their duffs and keeps them moving depends on age, gender, life circumstances and even ethnicity. For those of college age, for example, physical attractiveness typically heads the list of reasons to begin exercising, although what keeps them going seems to be the stress relief that a regular exercise program provides.

The elderly, on the other hand, may get started because of health concerns. But often what keeps them exercising are the friendships, sense of community and camaraderie that may otherwise be missing from their lives — easily seen among the gray-haired women who faithfully attend water exercise classes at my local YMCA.

In a recent study of 1,690 overweight or obese middle-aged men and women, Dr. Segar found that enhancing daily well-being was most influential factor for the women in the study. Men indicated they were motivated by more distant health benefits, although Dr. Segar suspects this may be because men feel less comfortable discussing their mental health needs.

“What sustains us, we sustain,” Dr. Segar said. “We need to promote what marketers call ‘customer loyalty.’ We need to help people stay engaged with movement by teaching them how it can help sustain them in their lives.“

Many, if not most, people start exercising because they want to lose weight. But very often they abandon exercise when the expected pounds fail to fall off. Study after study has found that, without major changes in eating habits, increasing physical activity is only somewhat effective for losing weight, though it helps people maintain weight loss and shedding even a few pounds, especially around one’s middle, can improve health.

For example, researchers in Brisbane, Australia, and in Leeds, England, studied 58 sedentary overweight or obese men and women who participated in a closely monitored 12-week aerobic exercise program. Weight loss was minimal, but nonetheless the participants’ waistlines shrunk, their blood pressure and resting heart rate dropped, and their aerobic capacity and mood improved.

“Exercise should be encouraged and the emphasis on weight loss reduced,” the researchers concluded. “Disappointment and low self-esteem associated with poor weight loss could lead to low exercise adherence and a general perception that exercise is futile and not beneficial.”

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/27

TEXT

What would it take to persuade you to exercise? A desire to lose weight or improve your figure? To keep heart disease, cancer or diabetes at bay? To lower your blood pressure or cholesterol? To protect your bones? To live to a healthy old age?

You’d think any of those reasons would be sufficient to get Americans exercising, but scores of studies have shown otherwise. It seems that public health experts, doctors and exercise devotees in the media — like me — have been using ineffective tactics to entice sedentary people to become, and remain, physically active.

For decades, people have been bombarded with messages that regular exercise is necessary to lose weight, prevent serious disease and foster healthy aging. And yes, most people say they value these goals. Yet a vast majority of Americans — two-thirds of whom are overweight or obese — have thus far failed to swallow the “exercise pill.”

Now research by psychologists strongly suggests it’s time to stop thinking of future health, weight loss and body image as motivators for exercise. Instead, these experts recommend a strategy marketers use to sell products: portray physical activity as a way to enhance current well-being and happiness.

“We need to make exercise relevant to people’s daily lives,” Michelle L. Segar, a research investigator at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan, said in an interview. “Everyone’s schedule is packed with nonstop to-do’s. We can only fit in what’s essential.”

Dr. Segar is among the experts who believe that people will not commit to exercise if they see its benefits as distant or theoretical. “It has to be portrayed as a compelling behavior that can benefit us today,” she said. “People who say they exercise for its benefits to quality of life exercise more over the course of a year than those who say they value exercise for its health benefits.”

Her idea for a public service advertisement to promote exercise for working women with families: A woman is shown walking around the block after dinner with her children and says, “This is great. I can fit in fitness, spend quality time with my kids, and at the same time teach them how important exercise is.”

Based on studies of what motivates people to adopt and sustain physical activity, Dr. Segar is urging that experts stop framing moderate exercise as a medical prescription that requires 150 minutes of aerobic effort each week. Instead, public health officials must begin to address “the emotional hooks that make it essential for people to fit it into their hectic lives.” “Immediate rewards are more motivating than distant ones,” she added. “Feeling happy and less stressed is more motivating than not getting heart disease or cancer, maybe, someday in the future.”

In a study of 252 office workers, David K. Ingledew and David Markland, psychologists at the University of Wales, found that while many began to exercise as way to lose weight and improve their appearance, these motivations did not keep them exercising in the long term. “The well-being and enjoyment benefits of exercise should be emphasized,” the researchers concluded.

Dr. Segar put it this way: “Physical activity is an elixir of life, but we’re not teaching people that. We’re telling them it’s a pill to take or a punishment for bad numbers on the scale. Sustaining physical activity is a motivational and emotional issue, not a medical one.”

Other studies have shown that what gets people off their duffs and keeps them moving depends on age, gender, life circumstances and even ethnicity. For those of college age, for example, physical attractiveness typically heads the list of reasons to begin exercising, although what keeps them going seems to be the stress relief that a regular exercise program provides.

The elderly, on the other hand, may get started because of health concerns. But often what keeps them exercising are the friendships, sense of community and camaraderie that may otherwise be missing from their lives — easily seen among the gray-haired women who faithfully attend water exercise classes at my local YMCA.

In a recent study of 1,690 overweight or obese middle-aged men and women, Dr. Segar found that enhancing daily well-being was most influential factor for the women in the study. Men indicated they were motivated by more distant health benefits, although Dr. Segar suspects this may be because men feel less comfortable discussing their mental health needs.

“What sustains us, we sustain,” Dr. Segar said. “We need to promote what marketers call ‘customer loyalty.’ We need to help people stay engaged with movement by teaching them how it can help sustain them in their lives.“

Many, if not most, people start exercising because they want to lose weight. But very often they abandon exercise when the expected pounds fail to fall off. Study after study has found that, without major changes in eating habits, increasing physical activity is only somewhat effective for losing weight, though it helps people maintain weight loss and shedding even a few pounds, especially around one’s middle, can improve health.

For example, researchers in Brisbane, Australia, and in Leeds, England, studied 58 sedentary overweight or obese men and women who participated in a closely monitored 12-week aerobic exercise program. Weight loss was minimal, but nonetheless the participants’ waistlines shrunk, their blood pressure and resting heart rate dropped, and their aerobic capacity and mood improved.

“Exercise should be encouraged and the emphasis on weight loss reduced,” the researchers concluded. “Disappointment and low self-esteem associated with poor weight loss could lead to low exercise adherence and a general perception that exercise is futile and not beneficial.”

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/27

TEXTE

LA PARISIENNE

Il n’est pas nécessaire d’être née à Paris pour avoir le style da la Parisienne. Avoir l’attitude made in Paris est plus un état d’esprit. Être rock et jamais bourgeoise par exemple. La Parisienne ne tombe jamais dans le piège des tendances: les laisser infuser et s’en servir à bon escient, voilà sa recette secrète ! Et garder toujours un objectif: s’amuser avec la mode. Elle suit quelques règles, mais aime bien les transgresser aussi, ça fait partie du style.

En ce qui concerne la beauté éternelle qu’on lui attribue, la Parisienne ne fait pas attention aux rides parce qu’il y a des avantages à vieillir: on apprécie le moment présent, on écoute les autres, on relativise. Cela ne veut pas dire qu’elle laisse tomber sa beauté. Elle a même quelques petites astuces qui peuvent faire office d’élixir de longue vie. En voici quelques-unes: être soignée; sentir bon; avoir de belles dents; sourire; être indulgente; être plus cool; être moins égoïste; être amoureuse d’un homme, d’un projet, d’une maison, ça a un effet lifting; faire les choses qui nous ressemblent, ça apporte de la « zénitude »; accepter qu’il y a des jours sans et profiter des jours avec!

Même si la Parisienne mange souvent des sushis, c’est dans les bistrots et restos qu’elle vient avec ses copines disserter sur Bardot et Beauvoir. Le café de la Flore, par exemple, est totalement associé à Paris, c’est presque un cliché. C’est aussi le coeur de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, dans le Quartier Latin, donc une mentalité. Il évoque les existentialistes mais surtout un esprit français: rebelle, provocateur, jovial, généreux et anticonformiste. Souvent un aéropage de gauche comme la rive où il se trouve.

Dans le total de ses attitudes, la Parisienne sait qu’il n’y a pas que le style dans la vie et qu’il y a aussi la façon de voir la vie. C’est ainsi qu’elle a une manière bien à elle de vivre sa ville et adopte des attitudes pour faire « locale », telles que connaître un lieu – presque – secret, visiter les musées hors circuit, fréquenter les librairies anciennes et s’expatrier en restant intra-muros. Voilà un peu de la vraie Parisienne.

Adapté du livre La Parisienne, Ines de la Fressange et Sophie Gachet, 2010, Flammarion.

TEXTO

CONFIRMAN UNA ESPECIE “HERMANA” DE LOS NEANDERTALES

En marzo de 2010, un extraño fósil salió por primera vez a la luz pública. Encontrado dos años antes en la remota cueva siberiana de Denisova, en los montes Altai, se trataba de un fragmento del dedo meñique de una niña (o de un niño) de unos siete años de edad que habitó en esa región hace más de 50.000 años. En el mismo lugar se encontraron también varios artefactos y herramientas y, algo más tarde, dos piezas dentales.

Los restos eran demasiado escasos como para determinar, por su morfología, la especie humana a la que pertenecían. Así que terminaron en Leizpig (Alemania), en manos de Svante Pääbo, director del Instituto Max Planck de Antropología Evolutiva y uno de los mayores expertos mundiales en ADN fósil.

Pääbo, el investigador que logró secuenciar el genoma del hombre de Neandertal, consiguió extraer del hueso del dedo varias muestras de ADN mitocondrial, un material genético que no se encuentra en el núcleo de las células, sino repartido en diversos orgánulos (mitocondrias) del citoplasma celular y que sólo se transmite de madres a hijas. Por eso bautizó el fósil como "Mujer X".

Los resultados del análisis genético del homínido de Denisova supusieron una sorpresa mayúscula para los investigadores. De hecho, su ADN mitocondrial no coincidía con el de los neandertales, como se suponía en un principio, y tampoco con el de los hombres modernos, nuestra propia especie. Por el contrario, las diferencias genéticas eran suficientemente profundas como para pensar en un grupo completamente nuevo.

De inmediato, Pääbo y su equipo empezaron a trabajar para obtener, y secuenciar, ADN nuclear del pequeño dedo infantil. Un material imprescindible para confirmar (o desmentir) el "mensaje" sugerido por el ADN mitocondrial del fósil. Hoy, en un artículo que publica la revista Science, el misterio se desvela por fin. Y se confirma lo que los científicos sospechaban: la "mujer X" perteneció a una especie humana desconocida hasta ahora. Una especie que hunde sus raíces en la noche de los tiempos y que está muy emparentada con los neandertales, con los que comparte un ancestro común. «La secuenciación genética muestra que los neandertales y los denisovanos son grupos hermanos, que se separaron de una población ancestral común después de escindirse de los humanos modernos», explicó David Reich, otro de los científicos implicados en la investigación.

José Manuel Nieves. Periódico ABC – España. Texto adaptado.

TEXTO

CONFIRMAN UNA ESPECIE “HERMANA” DE LOS NEANDERTALES

En marzo de 2010, un extraño fósil salió por primera vez a la luz pública. Encontrado dos años antes en la remota cueva siberiana de Denisova, en los montes Altai, se trataba de un fragmento del dedo meñique de una niña (o de un niño) de unos siete años de edad que habitó en esa región hace más de 50.000 años. En el mismo lugar se encontraron también varios artefactos y herramientas y, algo más tarde, dos piezas dentales.

Los restos eran demasiado escasos como para determinar, por su morfología, la especie humana a la que pertenecían. Así que terminaron en Leizpig (Alemania), en manos de Svante Pääbo, director del Instituto Max Planck de Antropología Evolutiva y uno de los mayores expertos mundiales en ADN fósil.

Pääbo, el investigador que logró secuenciar el genoma del hombre de Neandertal, consiguió extraer del hueso del dedo varias muestras de ADN mitocondrial, un material genético que no se encuentra en el núcleo de las células, sino repartido en diversos orgánulos (mitocondrias) del citoplasma celular y que sólo se transmite de madres a hijas. Por eso bautizó el fósil como "Mujer X".

Los resultados del análisis genético del homínido de Denisova supusieron una sorpresa mayúscula para los investigadores. De hecho, su ADN mitocondrial no coincidía con el de los neandertales, como se suponía en un principio, y tampoco con el de los hombres modernos, nuestra propia especie. Por el contrario, las diferencias genéticas eran suficientemente profundas como para pensar en un grupo completamente nuevo.

De inmediato, Pääbo y su equipo empezaron a trabajar para obtener, y secuenciar, ADN nuclear del pequeño dedo infantil. Un material imprescindible para confirmar (o desmentir) el "mensaje" sugerido por el ADN mitocondrial del fósil. Hoy, en un artículo que publica la revista Science, el misterio se desvela por fin. Y se confirma lo que los científicos sospechaban: la "mujer X" perteneció a una especie humana desconocida hasta ahora. Una especie que hunde sus raíces en la noche de los tiempos y que está muy emparentada con los neandertales, con los que comparte un ancestro común. «La secuenciación genética muestra que los neandertales y los denisovanos son grupos hermanos, que se separaron de una población ancestral común después de escindirse de los humanos modernos», explicó David Reich, otro de los científicos implicados en la investigación.

José Manuel Nieves. Periódico ABC – España. Texto adaptado.

TEXTE

LA PARISIENNE

Il n’est pas nécessaire d’être née à Paris pour avoir le style da la Parisienne. Avoir l’attitude made in Paris est plus un état d’esprit. Être rock et jamais bourgeoise par exemple. La Parisienne ne tombe jamais dans le piège des tendances: les laisser infuser et s’en servir à bon escient, voilà sa recette secrète ! Et garder toujours un objectif: s’amuser avec la mode. Elle suit quelques règles, mais aime bien les transgresser aussi, ça fait partie du style.

En ce qui concerne la beauté éternelle qu’on lui attribue, la Parisienne ne fait pas attention aux rides parce qu’il y a des avantages à vieillir: on apprécie le moment présent, on écoute les autres, on relativise. Cela ne veut pas dire qu’elle laisse tomber sa beauté. Elle a même quelques petites astuces qui peuvent faire office d’élixir de longue vie. En voici quelques-unes: être soignée; sentir bon; avoir de belles dents; sourire; être indulgente; être plus cool; être moins égoïste; être amoureuse d’un homme, d’un projet, d’une maison, ça a un effet lifting; faire les choses qui nous ressemblent, ça apporte de la « zénitude »; accepter qu’il y a des jours sans et profiter des jours avec!

Même si la Parisienne mange souvent des sushis, c’est dans les bistrots et restos qu’elle vient avec ses copines disserter sur Bardot et Beauvoir. Le café de la Flore, par exemple, est totalement associé à Paris, c’est presque un cliché. C’est aussi le coeur de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, dans le Quartier Latin, donc une mentalité. Il évoque les existentialistes mais surtout un esprit français: rebelle, provocateur, jovial, généreux et anticonformiste. Souvent un aéropage de gauche comme la rive où il se trouve.

Dans le total de ses attitudes, la Parisienne sait qu’il n’y a pas que le style dans la vie et qu’il y a aussi la façon de voir la vie. C’est ainsi qu’elle a une manière bien à elle de vivre sa ville et adopte des attitudes pour faire « locale », telles que connaître un lieu – presque – secret, visiter les musées hors circuit, fréquenter les librairies anciennes et s’expatrier en restant intra-muros. Voilà un peu de la vraie Parisienne.

Adapté du livre La Parisienne, Ines de la Fressange et Sophie Gachet, 2010, Flammarion.

TEXT

What would it take to persuade you to exercise? A desire to lose weight or improve your figure? To keep heart disease, cancer or diabetes at bay? To lower your blood pressure or cholesterol? To protect your bones? To live to a healthy old age?

You’d think any of those reasons would be sufficient to get Americans exercising, but scores of studies have shown otherwise. It seems that public health experts, doctors and exercise devotees in the media — like me — have been using ineffective tactics to entice sedentary people to become, and remain, physically active.

For decades, people have been bombarded with messages that regular exercise is necessary to lose weight, prevent serious disease and foster healthy aging. And yes, most people say they value these goals. Yet a vast majority of Americans — two-thirds of whom are overweight or obese — have thus far failed to swallow the “exercise pill.”

Now research by psychologists strongly suggests it’s time to stop thinking of future health, weight loss and body image as motivators for exercise. Instead, these experts recommend a strategy marketers use to sell products: portray physical activity as a way to enhance current well-being and happiness.

“We need to make exercise relevant to people’s daily lives,” Michelle L. Segar, a research investigator at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan, said in an interview. “Everyone’s schedule is packed with nonstop to-do’s. We can only fit in what’s essential.”

Dr. Segar is among the experts who believe that people will not commit to exercise if they see its benefits as distant or theoretical. “It has to be portrayed as a compelling behavior that can benefit us today,” she said. “People who say they exercise for its benefits to quality of life exercise more over the course of a year than those who say they value exercise for its health benefits.”

Her idea for a public service advertisement to promote exercise for working women with families: A woman is shown walking around the block after dinner with her children and says, “This is great. I can fit in fitness, spend quality time with my kids, and at the same time teach them how important exercise is.”

Based on studies of what motivates people to adopt and sustain physical activity, Dr. Segar is urging that experts stop framing moderate exercise as a medical prescription that requires 150 minutes of aerobic effort each week. Instead, public health officials must begin to address “the emotional hooks that make it essential for people to fit it into their hectic lives.” “Immediate rewards are more motivating than distant ones,” she added. “Feeling happy and less stressed is more motivating than not getting heart disease or cancer, maybe, someday in the future.”

In a study of 252 office workers, David K. Ingledew and David Markland, psychologists at the University of Wales, found that while many began to exercise as way to lose weight and improve their appearance, these motivations did not keep them exercising in the long term. “The well-being and enjoyment benefits of exercise should be emphasized,” the researchers concluded.

Dr. Segar put it this way: “Physical activity is an elixir of life, but we’re not teaching people that. We’re telling them it’s a pill to take or a punishment for bad numbers on the scale. Sustaining physical activity is a motivational and emotional issue, not a medical one.”

Other studies have shown that what gets people off their duffs and keeps them moving depends on age, gender, life circumstances and even ethnicity. For those of college age, for example, physical attractiveness typically heads the list of reasons to begin exercising, although what keeps them going seems to be the stress relief that a regular exercise program provides.

The elderly, on the other hand, may get started because of health concerns. But often what keeps them exercising are the friendships, sense of community and camaraderie that may otherwise be missing from their lives — easily seen among the gray-haired women who faithfully attend water exercise classes at my local YMCA.

In a recent study of 1,690 overweight or obese middle-aged men and women, Dr. Segar found that enhancing daily well-being was most influential factor for the women in the study. Men indicated they were motivated by more distant health benefits, although Dr. Segar suspects this may be because men feel less comfortable discussing their mental health needs.

“What sustains us, we sustain,” Dr. Segar said. “We need to promote what marketers call ‘customer loyalty.’ We need to help people stay engaged with movement by teaching them how it can help sustain them in their lives.“

Many, if not most, people start exercising because they want to lose weight. But very often they abandon exercise when the expected pounds fail to fall off. Study after study has found that, without major changes in eating habits, increasing physical activity is only somewhat effective for losing weight, though it helps people maintain weight loss and shedding even a few pounds, especially around one’s middle, can improve health.

For example, researchers in Brisbane, Australia, and in Leeds, England, studied 58 sedentary overweight or obese men and women who participated in a closely monitored 12-week aerobic exercise program. Weight loss was minimal, but nonetheless the participants’ waistlines shrunk, their blood pressure and resting heart rate dropped, and their aerobic capacity and mood improved.

“Exercise should be encouraged and the emphasis on weight loss reduced,” the researchers concluded. “Disappointment and low self-esteem associated with poor weight loss could lead to low exercise adherence and a general perception that exercise is futile and not beneficial.”

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/27