Drew Faust Aims To Get Harvard Off The Couch

Harvard magazine reports here that the World's Greatest University — to borrow an ironic phrase from Globe columnist Alex Beam — is launching a new fitness initiative.

"Harvard on the Move" began last week with a panel discussion, moderated by university president Drew Faust. It included evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman, who, Harvard Magazine says, "argued that today’s sedentary lives are 'bizarre' in comparison with the way hunter-gatherers lived until only 600 generations ago. He claimed that exercise could help reverse many health problems that stem from 'Paleolithic bodies leading twenty-first century lives,' and noted that two million years ago, 'people didn’t run alone with iPods in their ears, but in groups” that allowed them to exchange news and gossip.'"

Next on the game plan, the magazine reports:

Harvard on the Move’s program of group walks and runs, which it plans to sponsor four times weekly, begins on Tuesday, February 1, with President Faust herself present when the initiative takes what will literally be its first step.