LONDON, UK, November 28, 2011 (The Guardian): Obesity isn’t what’s robbing us of good health and life. Using data from the Cooper Centre Longitudinal Study exercise scientist Steven Blair and his colleagues have established that you can be fat and fit. It is better to be overweight and active than normal weight and sedentary in terms of risk of mortality, the research has shown.
Blair calls physical inactivity the biggest public health problem of the 21st century. Yet instead of paying attention to our sedentary lifestyles, we keep on focusing on fatness. As individuals, we just can’t resist stepping on the scales and it’s a staple of weight-loss programmes. Physical activity is almost always a secondary consideration, and then only because of its power to help us lose weight. This narrow focus is repeated in campaigns and the media, but the obsession with how much people weigh and how much they need to lose just isn’t helping us lead longer and healthier lives, or reducing the burden on the health service.
Making up our half an hour of not being sedentary does take an effort, but at least it can be achieved in manageable 10-minute blocks, can be made part of life without having to find fresh hours in the day – and above all has the merit of being in our control. A pill that promised the same effect as just 30 minutes of moderate intensity activity each day would make headlines around the world: yet the benefits are availble now for those who change their routines, and it’s free to do it.