Are You One of the 3% When it Comes to Heart Health?

It should not be surprising that most Americans fall short when it comes to ideal heart health. What is surprising is how many of us fail — an almost unbelievable 97.2%.

Yet that is the percentage a new study came up with when they looked at surveys of almost 5,000 people in the US.

The study looked at four lifestyle aspects that it considered requirements for healthy living: no cigarettes, reasonably healthy diet, enough exercise and a low percentage of body fat. None of these should be particularly hard to understand; no medical degree is required to know that all of these things are important to quality of life. And yes, according to this article, almost everyone falls short:

Only 2.7 percent of the Americans in the study were nonsmokers who ate a reasonably good diet, including eating plenty of vegetables and whole grains and avoiding saturated fat; got at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week; and had a healthy percentage of body fat, defined as up to 20 percent for men and 30 percent for women.

Does this mean that the standards are too high? Does it mean that if so few people are succeeding that it’s okay if you fall behind? Sorry, instead it means that it’s up to people like you to turn around this terrible statistic. Sit down and figure out where you’re falling short. You can be part of the 3%. And maybe one day… the 4%.

-Shane