DOCTORS HAIL SURGEON GENERAL'S `GET ACTIVE' REPORT.

Byline: Damaris Christensen Medical Tribune News Service

Doctors across the country are applauding the surgeon general's report that is urging all Americans to get off their couches and move.

``This could be as important as the tobacco report in 1964,'' said Scott D. Ballin, vice president and legislative council for the American Heart Association. ``The 1988 report on nutrition and health sparked a lot of policy changes, and hopefully this will do the same.''

The Surgeon General's Report on Physical Activity and Health, released Thursday in Washington, D.C., states that regular, moderate physical activity offers substantial benefits in health and well-being for the vast majority of Americans who are not physically active.

The report defines moderate physical activity as activity that uses about 150 calories of energy per day or 1,000 calories per week. Examples of moderate physical activity include walking briskly for 30 minutes, swimming laps for 20 minutes, washing and waxing a car for 45 minutes to an hour or pushing a stroller 1-1/4 miles in 30 minutes.

The report represents the first comprehensive review of the scientific evidence linking physical activity and health, according to Dr. Audrey Manley, the acting Surgeon General.

Regular physical activity reduces a person's risk of dying prematurely or of dying from heart disease, according to the report. It also reduces the risk of developing diabetes, high blood pressure or colon cancer; reduces feelings of anxiety and depression; helps control weight; helps build and maintain healthy bones, muscles, and joints; and helps older adults become stronger and better able to move around without falling.

Despite the importance of physical activity, more than 60 percent of all Americans do not get enough exercise, and 25 percent are not physically active at all, according to the report.

Inactivity increases with age and tends to be more common among women than men. ``We're creatures of habit,'' and our habit is sedentary, said Dr. Alvin J. Ciccone, a family physician at the Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk. ``A lot of people don't have a lot of time, but they may be more likely to do something if they don't think it will take that long.''

``You don't have to be training for the Boston Marathon to derive real health benefits from physical activity,'' said Donna Shalala, Secretary of Health and Human Services, speaking at a press conference in front of the White House on Thursday.

``Anything is better than nothing'' when it comes to physical fitness, agreed Dr. Joel M. Press, a physician at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. ``You don't have to go very far, and it doesn't cost very much.''

Communities, schools and workplaces can encourage physical activity, according to Ballin. ``Improve park systems so it's easier to walk, provide employees with opportunities to be physically active, do more to get kids active in schools.''

School-based programs are especially important, he added, because of their potential scope and impact - nearly all young people between ages 6 and 16 attend school, and physical activity sharply declines in adolescence.

People who are inactive can improve their health by becoming even moderately active on a regular basis. Such exercise need not be strenuous, although greater health benefits can be gained by increasing the duration, frequency, or intensity of physical activity, according to experts.

``People like guidelines, but it's hard to set those guidelines on a generic level,'' said Press. ``A person's physician can give a more appropriately focused prescription.''