Celebrating Women's History Month, let's spotlight female fitness trailblazers and explore fresh insights on exercise's role in brain health, highlighting the importance of physical activity in preventing cognitive decline and dementia. These pioneers and studies remind us that a healthy lifestyle is key at any age.
Female Pioneers of Fitness Paved the Way
March is Women’s History Month and a great time to remember that fitness, as we know it, didn’t always exist.
For earlier generations, gyms weren’t common, very few people lifted weights, and hardly anyone exercised for health or fun. Women, especially, were discouraged from exercising.
It wasn’t just men like Jack LaLanne and Arnold Schwarzenegger who brought fitness to the masses. Whether you’re male or female, here are five women often overlooked in the development of today’s fitness industry.
Bonnie Prudden. The fitness pioneer, rock climber and mountaineer compared American children to Europeans and found them lacking in activity. Her report to President Eisenhower initiated the formation of the President’s Council on Youth Fitness.
Lotte Berk. The German-born dancer developed a method of exercise that drew on ballet basics and the idea of “core” stability. Forms of her teaching are offered in today’s barre classes.
Katherine Switzer. She became the first woman to run the Boston Marathon as an official competitor in 1967. As she was running, a race manager tried to grab her bib number so she’d be disqualified. She finished.
Judi Sheppard Missett created Jazzercise in 1969, eventually helping to launch the aerobics craze that brought millions of women (and men) into fitness studios.
Elaine LaLanne, Jack LaLanne’s widow, is known as “the first lady of fitness” and was inducted into the National Fitness Hall of Fame in 2017. As of October 2023, she was still exercising daily at age 97.
Exercise Can Help Fight Signs of Dementia, Study Says
You already know that exercise is good for your body. You might also know that it helps your brain, as well.
But now, new research in the journal JAMA Neurology shows that living a healthy lifestyle protects the brain from cognitive decline even if it already shows signs of Alzheimer’s hallmarks or other brain pathologies that can occur long before dementia.
Scientists said the study is “an important step” in understanding how people can change their lifestyle habits to lower their chances of getting Alzheimer’s or other types of dementia.
In the research, they examined the brains of 586 people during autopsies, along with 24 years of data that was collected on how those people lived.
“This study found that in older adults, a healthy lifestyle may provide a cognitive reserve to maintain cognitive abilities independently of common neuropathologies of dementia,” the scientists wrote.
The authors report that five lifestyle factors (diet, physical activity, cognitive engagement, smoking, and alcohol consumption) “may operate through both prevention and resilience in that cognitive benefits were observed even for those who had neurodegenerative pathologies,” according to an editorial accompanying the research.
More than 88% of a person’s cognitive abilities were directly associated with lifestyle, the researchers found.
Developing dementia is one of the most common fears about growing older. The researchers note than 40% of worldwide dementia could be prevented through lifestyles changes. Are you doing everything you can to protect yourself? If you want to learn about how you can do that, book a consultation, contact me at loise@neuromotionwellness.com or join one of my online classes. New session is starting the first week of April.
Your inspiration for the week: Keep Moving
And remember, be kind to yourself and others! See you next time,
Dr. Loïse