Is it Easier to Get Fat in Today's World?

Last week, I received a "laundry e-mail" that was circulated and enjoyed by people in our community. It seemed like perfect timing when I considered all the "Civil War Days" events that we were preparing for around Lamoni. It opened with a dialogue between an older woman and her granddaughter. For those of you without access to internet or who may not have received the e-mail, here is what was exchanged...

"An old woman asked her granddaughter, "If you could only have one modern convenience in your kitchen, what would you choose?" The girl looked around, tried to picture life without her refrigerator, stove, microwave, toaster, electric skillet, kitchen timer, or telephone. Finally, she said, "I would choose to keep the refrigerator." Then she continued, "What would you choose, Grandma?" Her grandmother smiled gently and said, "Running water."

The e-mail closed with step by step instructions on how to do laundry...beginning with building a fire in the backyard to heat rainwater and ending with specifics about prettying yourself back up after your labor was complete.

Now, I'm not sure about the rest of you, but this really inspired some reflection on my part. While I am grateful for running water, electricity, and the household appliances that make life so much less physically demanding than generations of women and men before me, I think maybe there have been some tradeoffs. Some inconvenient truths, if you will, in our quest for convenience.

After being completely amazed that laundry was once such an involved chore, I decided to see if I could come up with a rough estimate of calories burned in doing laundry the old way vs. using our handy dandy washers at home. Keep in mind this is just an estimate. I used "sparkpeople.com" and "fitday.com" to help in calculations.

Let us say we begin with chopping the wood, hauling the laundry outside in baskets then scrubbing and ringing clothes by hand. Next we pile wet clothes in baskets, hauling the baskets over to a line and lifting these wet things overhead to hang for drying. We end by taking clothes off the line, putting them back in baskets and by carrying them back in the house. Perhaps we are well skilled at this and the entire process beginning to end minus the drying time is about 60 minutes.

Using the internet resources available to me I calculated that a doing laundry this way burns about 355 calories. This is almost as much as I burn when I hop on the elliptical machine for 40 minutes and work up a good sweat. Compare this to the 19 calories burned by using a washer and dryer and then folding clothes after they are dry.

Would I want to go back to the old way??? Not for a second!!! Besides, I think that old way of doing laundry would take someone like me an entire afternoon until I got the routine down. It is however a good reminder that convenience has changed our lifestyles and the way we expend energy. It's easy to pop open something instant to eat, use all our modern conveniences designed to make things "easier" and forget that we are eating more calories and burning off less of them than people in previous generations.

The USDA reports there has been a 250% increase in childhood obesity since the boomer generation. The average American adult is also affected by issues related to unhealthy weight or is struggling to lose weight.

So, since I'm not going to be outside boiling laundry any time in my near future I am resigned to the fact that in order to stay fit I'm going to have to find another way to sweat it out.

I don't know about you, but I'd still take the elliptical machine over laundry duty any day of the week.