Skipping your way to fitness is hard

Press, 16 January 1986, Page 12

Skipping your way to fitness is hard

By

PORTER SHIMER

If you are planning to pound out some heavy mileage indoors when the weather is less tempting for outdoor pursuits, you might be disappointed to learn that skipping rope provides no tougher a workout than jogging. That’s the word from experts at Dr Ken Cooper’s Aerobics Centre in Dallas. They report that skipping rope even at a brisk 120 turns per minute is the aerobic and calorie-burning equivalent of jogging at a relatively unhurried 8:30 minute-per-mile pace. Even if you skip rope faster than 120 turns per minute, calorie burning does not increase appreciably, because to achieve a faster pace, you begin to decrease the height of your jumps. Skipping rope might feel difficult, but only because of the co-ordination needed, Ken Cooper’s researchers concluded. It seems that frustration and calorie burning do not equate.

Smokeless tobacco high in sodium As if risks of mouth cancer and tooth erosion

weren’t enough, it seems there’s yet another hazard associated with the use of smokeless tobacco. The stuff is very high in sodium, and so it may threaten people advised to restrict their sodium intake, report researchers in the “New England Journal of Medicine.” Sodium levels in most smokeless tobaccos (chewing tobacco as well as snuff) rival those of such highsodium foods as dill pickles and bacon, the researchers say. Potato chips still the champs of fat Quite a few snack foods now are available that can leave your fingers good and greasy, but still number one in the fat department is the potato chip, report food scientists from the University of California., at Davis. The scientists pitted

potato chips against cheese puffs (38 per cent fat), corn chips (35 per cent fat) and tortilla chips (24 per cent fat).

None could match the potato chip standard of 40 per cent. Potatoes by themselves are barely 1 per cent fat, so you can see the effects of processing. Most hazardous room in your house is The bedroom has top accident rating, reports “New Shelter” magazine. Despite all that can go wrong in the bathroom and kitchen, the bedroom is where most home accidents occur. Spills taken in response to middle-of-the-night calls from Mother Nature are the No. 1 cause of bedroom mishaps. So, if you don’t have a night-light, it could be a good investment. Copyright, Universal Press Syndicate.