Healthy lifestyles a rarity in US

Under three percent of US citizens live healthy lives, according to a HealthDay story citing a new study.

The study looked at data on more than 4,700 people who took part in the US National Health and Nutrition Survey.

The researchers assessed how many people followed four general principles of healthy living – a good diet, moderate exercise, not smoking and keeping body fat under control.

“The behavior standards we were measuring for were pretty reasonable, not super high,” said study senior author Ellen Smit, an associate professor at the Oregon State University College of Public Health and Human Sciences, in Corvallis. “We weren’t looking for marathon runners.”

In fact, the standards used in the study were typical of lifestyle advice given by doctors to their patients, Smit’s team said. People who adhered to those four behaviors could help reduce their risk of many health problems, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

But under three percent of the adults in the study achieved all four of the healthy living measures, the researchers found.

Overall, 71 percent of the adults surveyed did not smoke, 38 percent ate a healthy diet, 10 percent had a normal body fat percentage and 46 percent got sufficient amounts of physical activity.

Sixteen percent adhered to three of the healthy lifestyle behaviors, 37 percent to two, 34 percent to one and 11 percent to none.

The study was conducted by researchers at Oregon State University, the University of Mississippi and the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga.

The HealthDay story is at: http://consumer.healthday.com/fitness-information-14/misc-fitness-health-news-312/less-than-3-percent-of-americans-live-a-healthy-lifestyle-709215.html