Health, Taken Seriously

When I was a little girl, my father walked to work.  We lived between one and two miles from his office, which happened to be up a pretty sizable hill.  Every day–snow, rain, or shine–my father hiked up that hill to his job.  He also worked out in addition to this, taking classes at the local rec center and doing calisthenics in our basement.  At the time, I don’t remember thinking anything of it. But in retrospect, I believe my father was slowly teaching me over time, through his example, a love of exercise.

When I was a teenager, I became pretty interesting in working out.  Mostly because I was a chubby 13-year old that suddenly cared a lot about my body and boys.  I signed up for a daily aerobics class at my school, frequented the gym, and began video-taping exercise shows on ESPN (remember Denise Austin?)  Ever since, I have been somewhat addicted to exercise.  Hardly a week goes by without me visiting the gym.

My mother got breast cancer in 1999.  Prior to that, she had loved going on long walks and hikes, but never did much more than that in the way of exercise.  After cancer, she realized the importance of exercise in keeping a recurrence at bay.  She especially developed a love for weight-lifting, in attempt to get her bone mass as dense as possible to prevent any sort of metastasis to her bones–apparently common in breast cancer patients.  One year ago, at the age of 52, my mother got certified as an aerobics instructor and now teaches for her local Rec centers.  She teaches classes, or takes them, daily.

And finally, all of this build up comes down to my 3-year old son.  He sees that Mommy goes to the gym each week.  He sees that Grandpa hikes to work daily.  He sees that Grandma teaches exercise classes.  So what does he do?  Thanks to all of these examples of exercise, my son pretends he’s driving to the gym.  He pretends to be teaching body pump classes (“lift your leg, one, two, three…”)  He insists that he needs to get out of the stroller and walk because “he hasn’t gotten any exercise yet today.”

Most impressive to me is my son’s relentless desire to hike to work with his grandfather.  We finally decided to let him try.  It’s over a mile and a 700-foot climb, so my father was prepared to carry him part of the way.  I dressed him in layers one morning earlier this week, gave him a hat, sunglasses, and water bottle and kissed him goodbye.  One hour later, I drove to my father’s work to meet them.  Low and behold, guess who walked the entire way by himself?  My 3-year old son.  I couldn’t believe it!  What three year old is willing to hike for an hour??  I give credit to the power of his family’s example all his life.  This kid wants to be just like us. . . and luckily, that means he wants to exercise!