Inactivity 'kills more than obesity'

A lack of exercise could be killing twice as many people as obesity in Europe, a 12-year study of more than 300,000 people suggests.

University of Cambridge researchers said about 676,000 deaths each year were down to inactivity, compared with 337,000 from carrying too much weight.

They concluded that getting everyone to do at least 20 minutes of brisk walking a day would have substantial benefits.

– BBC News: Inactivity ‘kills more than obesity’

I am actually struggling to think how I could be active for less than 20 minutes a day.

If you were really obese it would be hard to move around much……

If you were really obese it would be hard to move around much……

It’s inactive skinny people too:

“The greatest risk (of an early death) was in those classed inactive, and that was consistent in normal weight, overweight and obese people,” one of the researchers, Prof Ulf Ekelund told BBC News.

Its fairly easy not to do 20 mins activity a day, if you drive to back from work and have an office job.
If you don’t use your body it probably starts to forget whats its for and shuts down.

well “skinny people not necessarily being healthy” isn’t exactly news, but surely there’s a lot of crossover with inactivity and overweight/obese…?

Edit had a cold last week so was taking the train to work, the walk to/from the train station only bagged me 40mins a day and tbh I’m not sure I’d class that as activity let alone exercise. If you park outside your house and place of work then sub 20minutes a day sounds all too easy.

I am actually struggling to think how I could be active for less than 20 minutes a day

I think when they mean 20 minutes of brisk walking they mean at a level that actually raises you pulse and gets you breathing harder. Its not just strolling around the shops at lunchtime.

I’m not sure I do 20 minutes of brisk activity EVERY day.

*puts down sausage roll*

I am actually struggling to think how I could be active for less than 20 minutes a day.

It’s fairly easy actually:
I work from home most days, my office is a 10 seconds walk downstairs, the kitchen is 5 seconds walk next door. It’s easy to get stuck at your desk all day without taking a break or leaving the house. Especially in winter when going for a ride in the evening is not very appealing when it’s windy, wet, and cold.

I’ve put on a few kgs since I started working from home because of all the short little walks around the site of my previous employer really did add up. Easy access to the biscuit cupboard when WFH doesn’t help either 😀

I walk 20 minutes each day, as its a 10 minute walk to the pub from my office.

*picks up binners sausage roll*
Nom Nom Nom

Unusually, I’m working from home this morning – the Google Fit app tells me I’ve been ‘active’ for an hour.

Active?

*picks up second sausage roll*

Unusually, I’m working from home this morning – the Google Fit app tells me I’ve been ‘active’ for an hour.

I bet you have.

I. Bet. You. Have…

Edit: Dammit binners!

It’s on my phone, not a wrist band 🙂

Its fairly easy not to do 20 mins activity a day, if you drive to back from work and have an office job.
If you don’t use your body it probably starts to forget whats its for and shuts down.

This is spot on – I put Google fit app on my phone few weeks back…and frankly I was shocked to see my activity on a work day was essentially zero apart from 10mile bike commute ;-). Until you see the figures like that you don’t realise how bloody inactive you are.

My colleagues who drive in though, and spend all day gossiping about the telly they saw last night….well…they are doomed! Many of them only walked while pushing a trolley around supermarket, and increasingly that’s being replaced with online shopping/delivery. Won’t be long before the only activity many of them get is hunting around the garden to see where the Yodel Trebuchet has deposited their BluRay Thai Ladyboy Art Films.

I had previously disregarded those activity tracker Garmin bands that remind you to get up and walk around every now and then as a gimmick…..now I think they should be compulsory and linked to some sort of Low intensity Taser.

well “skinny people not necessarily being healthy” isn’t exactly news, but surely there’s a lot of crossover with inactivity and overweight/obese…?

I think the point is that being overweight/obese isn’t as unhealthy as people perceive it to be – its a combination of factors in addition to weight that are. Being active and overweight seems to offset many of the ill-effects of being overweight.

The problem is we view weight as a health factor in its own right when its really part of a constellation of factors and when we’re considering health and risks to health its not always clear where weight is a cause of a condition or symptom of it.

Similarly we don’t really grasp the value of exercise – this is suggesting the activity levels required to get better health outcomes are very low. What we don’t understand so easily is the difference between a little gentle exercise, (walking around a bit), and being sport-fit (running a lot, cycling a lot, working out etc) is practically bugger all in health benefit terms.

Its fairly easy not to do 20 mins activity a day, if you drive to back from work and have an office job.

These studies are about the ends of peoples lives, yes everyone can plan to walk a bit more as part of their working lives, but people who are not managing 20 minutes activity a day may be in that position because they are ill, injured or disabled or just plain old.

Sadly a large portion of the population would be very happy with a Wall-E style existence:

Seems to me that some people regard anything requiring physical effort as a bit unseemly. 🙁

the walk to/from the train station only bagged me 40mins a day and tbh I’m not sure I’d class that as activity let alone exercise

Then you’d be wrong. If you’re an active bikey type the 40 mins per day walking might not give you a useful boost to your fitness (though I’m sure it’d do something), but for the very many people who do nothing at all just 20 mins of continuous moderate exercise will have a huge benefit. Which I believe is what the study said.

Setting the bar too high for what “counts” is very unproductive in public health.

I am actually struggling to think how I could be active for less than 20 minutes a day.

I know a girl who walks her dog 15mins a day. Thats her TOTAL exercise. She never eats breakfast and eats a small microwave ready meal for lunch, no water and only juice drinks. With a frozen processed meal for tea in the oven. She also drives everywhere.

It’s inactive skinny people too:

“The greatest risk (of an early death) was in those classed inactive, and that was consistent in normal weight, overweight and obese people,” one of the researchers, Prof Ulf Ekelund told BBC News.

Thats not what that says.

It says ‘normal, overweight and obese’.

I get fed up of being called skinny because I’m a normal build.

I get fed up of being called skinny because I’m a normal build.

When the majority of adults are overweight or obese then being a “normal build” is no longer “normal”.

I’m trying to offset my sedentary job by doing some form of activity every day or as near as I can. Either training or at least some kind of walk or slow run.

So far it’s been training almost every day and my legs are battered 🙂

Setting the bar too high for what “counts” is very unproductive in public health.

Indeed, we have built an industry around packaging ‘exercise’ as something too difficult, time consuming, expensive and ultimately too boring for most people to do.

This is spot on – I put Google fit app on my phone few weeks back…and frankly I was shocked to see my activity on a work day was essentially zero apart from 10mile bike commute ;-). Until you see the figures like that you don’t realise how bloody inactive you are.

This was quite a shock for me as well. I pretty much walk for 5 minutes a day and ride a bike for over an hour!

I am actually struggling to think how I could be active for less than 20 minutes a day.

Workplace has 100+ employees & apart from yours truly and a couple of others everyone else is totally sendentary

They live local and drive
Break/lunchtime is an opportunity to stop talking and go on the Internet
They don’t have anything to drink because then they’d have to get up and walk to the toilet
All forms of relaxation/enjoyment are connected in some way with food and the consumption thereof

Not judging them it’s just how people are

If only there was an easy way to identify inactive but not overweight people so we we could judge, bully and ridicule them.

I know a girl who walks her dog 15mins a day. Thats her TOTAL exercise.

more than my neighbour back home.

Walking the dog is… open the door, throw the ball and the dog runs and brings it back. repeat 3-4 times.

If only there was an easy way to identify inactive but not overweight people so we we could judge, bully and ridicule them.

We could wait for them to die prematurely, then point and laugh?

I’ve not been able to ride much the last few weeks, and it’s killing me!

I work in public health. We all sit at desks all day. I cycle an hour in, a couple of my colleagues walk and everyone else drives. Say as I say, not as I do….

Break/lunchtime is an opportunity to stop talking and go on the Internet

Worked with loads like this. I’ve always needed to get up and get out. Others don’t move from the moment they come in till they leave. These aren’t workaholics just theres no point. Its cold/too hot/raining/too sunny/too windy outside.

Saw something about Garmin Fit on the phone when it updated. Just assumed it was a gimmick for Goggle to learn even more about me.

Is it any good?

Worked with loads like this. I’ve always needed to get up and get out. Others don’t move from the moment they come in till they leave. These aren’t workaholics just theres no point. Its cold/too hot/raining/too sunny/too windy outside.

*waves to hora across office*

Saw something about Garmin Fit on the phone when it updated. Just assumed it was a gimmick for Goggle to learn even more about me.

Is it any good?

Assuming you mean Google Fit, it gets the time taken for my bike commute pretty much spot on, the step counts seem relatively consistent for regular trips I make on foot, and the activity graphs seem to show it’s counting when I’m moving and not counting when I’m stationary.

It seems to do what all these activity trackers do, without the need to spend £80 and wear a bracelet 🙂

yeah google. I blame autocorrect 😉

Might enable it later to see what it’s all about.

Break/lunchtime is an opportunity to stop talking and go on the Internet

That’s where they’re going wrong – they should be on the internet all the rest of the time.

I lived in Hong Kong for twenty years. If there was a place where it is chronically difficult to exercise that was it. Everyone lives in tiny boxes in tower blocks with lifts, and takes the metro or bus to work in tiny boxes in tower blocks with lifts. Very little open space, and zero chance of cycling to work or going for a jog from the office at lunchtime.
But – get up about 6am and every little corner – be it three square metres of concrete with a bench, or a inner city park would be packed with Chinese folk doing Tai Chi, stretching, jogging on the spot, or just flapping their arms around. Now, they knew the value of simple exercise, and didn’t need any special facilities, clothing, technology, or in fact anything more than enough room to swing a cat to do it.
Sometimes we ignore the simple stuff, and believe you’ve got to have a personal trainer and an expensive gym membership – or nothing.
Just saying – that’s all…

I always park at the back of the car park, no matter what time I get to the office. Most people get in early so they can get a space as near to the door as possible.

It’s a 10 min walk from the back so there is 20 mins just there.

Most people live within an easy walk or cycle yet there is gridlock to leave most days. Because of this I calculate you’d have to live over 10 miles away before it becomes time positive to drive to the office yet 99% of people still do it.

Then everyone complains they’ve got no money and can’t lose weight.

Nowt as queer as folk.

@sok – wait til you hear about the dieticians I met once, in fact GrahamS found a picture of one of them in her red jumpsuit up there ^
Kinda hard to take seriously…

I always park at the back of the car park….

It’s a 10 min walk from the back

😯 how big is that car park!?

Most people live within an easy walk or cycle yet there is gridlock to leave most days. Because of this I calculate you’d have to live over 10 miles away before it becomes time positive to drive to the office yet 99% of people still do it.

Then everyone complains they’ve got no money and can’t lose weight.

Nowt as queer as folk.

Same here, I live < 3miles form work, I cycle (obviously), it takes between 8-12 mins depending on traffic lights, by car between 10-45mins depending on traffic, walking is ~45-50mins no matter what.

On a good day I can take the 8 mile route home and still beat people home who live closer to the office than me, and that’s just tootling along at commuting pace.

I even ride past several peoples houses who drive into work, the closest is ~800m from the office. I cannot get my head round that…