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| The Wilmot-Greenfield family look like they're having fun exercising. |
A survey of 11-year-olds has found that just one in 250 girls and one in 20 boys does enough exercise to maintain their health.
Children just aren't doing enough to stay healthy, it seems. The survey of 5500 children by Bath and Bristol universities found that just 0.4% of girls and 5% of boys did an hour or more moderate to vigorous exercise in a day. The researchers highlighted a number of factors that they say contribute to the problem from the sale of school playing fields, to children not being allowed to walk to school and being driven everywhere. They said that Britain had created 'an environment that is toxic' to children having an active life.
It would seem too that most UK adults are so unwilling to exercise that not even the threat of an early death is enough to convince them. British Heart Foundation figures show only a third of people manage to do enough exercise to achieve the minimum recommended amount. Inactivity is dangerous even in those who are a healthy weight yet few slim people seem to be aware that inactivity increases your risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease.. Among the 2,100 people surveyed, brisk walking was found to be the favourite way of getting exercise - before dancing, swimming or going to the gym.
According to the YouGov survey, only 4% said they found exercise fun. Young women and young adults were more likely to exercise to change their body shape than to stay healthy. Almost a third of 18 to 24-year-olds would, apparently, do more exercise if they were told they looked fat or if they fancied someone at the gym! A mere 13% of men and 7% of women said keeping a healthy heart was their main motivator.
The British Heart Foundation, which is launching a campaign to encourage people to up their heart rate for 30 minutes a day, says that someone dies every 15 minutes as a direct result of physical inactivity. Dr Mike Knapton, director of prevention and care at the BHF, said:
"With our busy lifestyles and labour-saving devices we've stopped getting the exercise our bodies desperately need. For many people, exercise has become an ugly word, something to avoid at all costs - but you'd be amazed how easy it is to up the tempo of your heartbeat. Just 30 minutes a day will do you and your heart the world of good." The government recommends a minimum of 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity five times a week.
Dr David Haslam, clinical director of the National Obesity Forum, said ; "Children instinctively exercise when left to their own devices, but they don't because they're stopped from doing that by the school curriculum and parents scared of child abductors and murderers lurking on every corner. So, if it doesn't become a habit, you're not going to work hard to go against the tide and introduce it as an adult." He added that exercise could be incorporated into everyday life.
September 2007
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