Friday, 18 November 2011

Kicking out fat mindsets

Unizulu masters researcher Musa Mathunjwa with his two supervisors and four of the students who took part in the Tae-bo programme: (back) Consumer Science’s Dr Corrie du Preez, Mathunjwa, Head, Biokinetics and Sport Science Professor Stuart Semple; (front) Lulamile Shabangu, Khawula Samke, Khambule Sbancane and Innocentia Mvubu

Weight loss begins in the mind and training the mind and body with a sport like Tae-bo may be the key to shedding those extra kilos. This is according to human movement scientist, Musa Mathunjwa, who is a third dan - equivalent to a black belt - in Tae-kwondo, and is currently doing his Masters research project on the effects of the Tae-bo programme on the physical fitness and general health of those involved.‘With weight loss comes a change of mindset.‘As the students start to feel empowered to control their bodies, so their self-esteem increases,’ says Mathunjwa. Part of his research involved taking 60 technically overweight and obese University of Zululand female students through a 10 week Tae-bo exercise programme, with encouraging results - the students have not just shed some excess kilos, but also their sedentary mindsets. Mathunjwa selected students registering 25 or over on the body mass index (BMI) scale, who live on campus so do not walk in each day to study. Even halfway through the course of one hour sessions of low to moderate activity three times weekly, there was much improvement.‘Participants were feeling active, flexible and light.‘No one had dropped out.

‘Everyone had lost three or four kilos and reported that they no longer got so hungry,’ says Mathunjwa who ran three classes consisting of 15 to 25 students each. The second part of the course was much more strenuous, but he says the students still coped - and enjoyed the attention of a personal coach. Tae-bo was developed in the United States as a slower-paced derivative of the Korean non-contact sport Tae-kwondo, which combines fighting, karate and boxing. ‘Tae-bo stands for total awareness excellence body obedience,’ explains Mathunjwa.‘Like its parent, it is an art of foot, fist and mind used in self- defence and to improve self-image.’