Date: 2014-09-17

The Ag. Head of the Department of Human Kinetics and Health Education, University of Ilorin, Dr. (Mrs.) Oluwafunmilola Dominic, has said that majority of staff members of the University have lower back pain because of lack of adequate exercises. She lamented that many individuals have now relied wholly on technology to do things that they ought to do themselves.

Dr. Dominic, who disclosed this in an interview with Unilorin Bulletin recently, said that staff members were not taking full advantage of the Unilorin Fitness Centre because of their schedule of work, saying that Centre is mostly patronised by students.

The don said, “Members of staff are not really using the Centre and one of the complaints they give is that they don't really have the time; after working from morning to evening they want to pick their children from school. So, majority don't really patronise the Centre.”

She explained that everybody has to be involved in fitness exercise as a purposeful activity because of its many benefits to health, noting that “exercise, in addition to providing psychological satisfaction and social benefits, helps to improve the functions of the heart, decreases blood pressure, promotes healthy bones, aids digestion, mental alertness and boosts the immune system.”

Dr. Dominic said, “The major problem we have on campus here is stress and stress leads to high blood pressure. They should look for time; when they are at the desks after may be 30 minutes or one hour, they should leave their desks, walk around for five minutes, crack jokes, and go back to their seats. After another hour do the same thing so that at the end of the day if you do that for 30 minutes, you will have had a little exercise.”

While enjoining staff to register with the Fitness Centre, the Fitness Instructor said, “We have aerobic groups, come there and spend 30 minutes. There is a place to shower; take a shower and go to the office or you can plan it towards the closing time then you go home. Not only exercising, you should rest; make sure you eat balanced diet. If you are sedentric, don't eat too much, eat a little. Take much fruits and more fluids, then, you should learn to take life simple.”

She added, “We remember our grandparents; they work long hours. They work on the farm, they pound yam, they grind their pepper but now, technological innovation has taken away what they call physical activity from us. So now, we need to do more exercise because we don't have enough to do. We ride cars instead of walking; we use poundo yam instead of pounding our yam; we use grinding machine to grind our pepper, we use painters to paint our houses. In the olden days, they did the work themselves, so you discover majority of the things we do are sedentary.

“For example, majority of the university workers rush to office; we discover we don't have enough activity. We end up getting house helps do the work we are supposed to do after work, which means from sedentary work in the office, sedentary at home; so this makes exercise very important for us to participate in.”

“The problem with man is that we are not disciplined. It is not that technology is not a blessing but we should not rely on them totally. The essence of this technology is to relieve us but it is not to take away what we are supposed to do completely; we have now relied on technology that the day it crashes in the sky, every of our information are gone. At times when we go to the bank when there is a network problem, you cannot get your money, so man should not rely on the technology only. The body requires physical work. To maintain the human machine, it requires exercise; it requires working. If you cannot pound, you should be able to do other things.”