"Fitness a struggle for disabled people"

""There's an enormous number of barriers that people with disabilities face when they try to become healthy," says Dr. James Rimmer, director of the National Center on Physical Activity & Disability, and a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Those barriers range from health clubs that view people with disabilities as potential liabilities to public health campaigns that bypass them entirely.

"There's a mind-set that people with disabilities are also ill and they shouldn't be exercising," says Jerry McCole, who heads the National Disability Sports Alliance. The group promotes athletic competition and physical activity among people with cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury, stroke and other physically disabling conditions.

"It's like any minority group — out of sight, out of mind," McCole says."

The article goes on to say that the erroneous assumption that people with disabilities cannot do physical tasks adds to the problem, including the lack of availability of fitness alternatives. This contributes to the poor health of many with disabilties who develop secondary health conditions .

Via Yahoo News