Army tells its officers to change their lifestyle

New handbook prescribes exercises to prevent diabetes, heart diseases, Syndrome x

PUNE:  Instead of sending the file through the office boy, take the file yourself to your colleague’s desk…Or after every one hour of table job, get up and walk for five minutes.

You should park your car farthest from the office or in the market.  Don’t use children or  servants for ‘fetch it’ jobs.

These are some of the “useful tips” figuring in a handbook for armymen now. After campaigning against excessive drinking and smoking, the Indian Army is now beginning to worry that lack of proper exercise and diet is resulting in an increasing number of lifestyle diseases, affecting not only civilians but also personnel from the armed forces.
Col Raj Vir Bhalwar, from the  department of community medicine in the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC), said the handbook also has a detailed structured exercises programme.

“Physical exercise has a number of direct health benefits which helps prevent lifestyle diseases,” a senior military official involved in the project told DNA.

Maj-Gen P Madhusoodanan, former dean of the AFMC, said the idea was to develop an active lifestyle for armed forces personnel, and cut down the risk of lifestyle diseases. The handbook explains that exercise improves the action of the insulin hormone in the body, thus protecting against diabetes, heart disease and Syndrome X.

Syndrome X is a medical condition, first coined by researchers from Standford University in 1988, to describe a cluster of symptoms, including high-blood pressure, high triglycerides and obesity, “which tend to  appear together in some individuals and increase their risk of developing diabetes and heart disease”.

A study conducted by AFMC on 614 army personnel posted at Khadki, new Pune, a couple of years back had revealed that one out of every 12 middle-aged, apparently healthy Indian army soldier, was harbouring Syndrome X.

“Exercise also helps removes the fat inside our abdomen, reduces blood pressure, and specifically increases the good type of cholesterol (HDL) in our body,” Bhalwar said, explaining that exercise is also the finest known stress-buster.

The army last year had taken a similar initiative, encouraging moderation in drinking habits. Moderation was defined as “Not more than three small pegs (preferably, two small pegs) in a day for men, and not more than two small pegs (preferably one small peg) for women.”

It also specified that half a bottle of beer or a 100 ml glass of wine is equal to one small peg of liquor. Four years back, the army had initiated a ‘Blow the enemy, not your heart and  lungs’ campaign to weed out smoking from within its ranks.

This year, the emphasis is on right  exercise. “There are two aspects of how much should we exercise,” the handbook explains.

“First, is the structured exercise programme which we must undertake regularly in our
daily life; secondly, which is also very  important, we have to make our day to day life more active.”

“Under the structured exercise programme, we have advised that all army personnel keep aside at least one hour every day at any time for physical exercise,” the official said, explaining that it has been divided into four categories: mild intensity (seven days a week of one hour each), moderate intensity (5-7 days a week of 45-60 min each), heavy exercises (4-6 days a week of 30-45 min each), and very heavy (3-4 days a week of 20-30 min each). 

On weight training, the handbook cites a few examples for those  interested in doing weights. “They should undertake two or three sessions a week, exercise all major muscle groups (chest, arms, forearms, shoulders,  thighs, and legs), and use 20-30 lb for each  muscle group.”