The holidays and the Sinulog festivities are behind us and gone are the food and drinks for the celebrations. For some people, this will be the time to revisit their recycled resolutions for the new year. Resolutions that when Valentine’s Day comes, it is nothing but a forgotten memory.
I had a few of these intentions when the new year comes but the strength of will and character escapes. Firmness of purpose is an unfamiliar phrase.
We had a topic on the beneficial effects of walking a few months back. This time, in article on WebMD written by Ralph Ellis, a recent study says that adding more steps to it could add some years to our lives, especially to those of us who don’t regularly exercise. Emphasis on the “could” as how we can do it is dependent on the lifestyles we’re having.
A study made by Griffith School of Medicine in Queensland, Australia on Americans over 40 says that about 25% of the population is physically active. If all 40-year-old and above of the population are as active as the 25%, the average life expectancy increases by five years and up to a maximum of 11 years.
“Our findings suggest that physical activity provides substantially larger health benefits that previously thought, which is due to the use of more precise means of measuring it.”
They looked into the activity levels of the subjects and converted all forms of exercise levels into walking minutes and were broken down into four groups.
The least active people did 50 minutes of daily walking. The next group had 80 minutes of walking daily. The third group walked 110 minutes and the most active group did 160 minutes of walking daily.
The study revealed that of the four groups, the least active would have the most to gain as each extra hour of walking would add to almost six hours of life.
“Infrastructure measures that encourage active transport, walkable neighborhoods as well as green spaces might be promising approaches to increasing physical activity and resultant healthy life expectancy at the population level”, the study concluded, acknowledging that it won’t be easy to persuade people to level up their activities.
A healthy lifestyle that includes regular physical activity can increase life expectancy even for people whose genes are predisposed to short lifespans.
So people, let’s take a few more steps, hopefully, on a regular basis beginning this year.