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2012-07-18 09:32:28
By Nick Triggle Health correspondent, BBC News
A lack of exercise is now causing as many deaths as smoking across the world, a
study suggests.
The report, published in the Lancet to coincide with the build-up to the
Olympics, estimates that about a third of adults are not doing enough physical
activity, causing 5.3m deaths a year.
That equates to about one in 10 deaths from diseases such as heart disease,
diabetes and breast and colon cancer.
Researchers said the problem was now so bad it should be treated as a pandemic.
And they said tackling it required a new way of thinking, suggesting the public
needed to be warned about the dangers of inactivity rather than just reminded
of the benefits of being active.
Exercise can...
Help with insomnia
Strengthen bones
Help you to manage stress, anxiety and even depression
Source: BBC health
How to make your lifestyle more healthy
The team of 33 researchers drawn from centres across the world also said
governments needed to look at ways to make physical activity more convenient,
affordable and safer.
It is recommended that adults do 150 minutes of moderate exercise, such as
brisk walking, cycling or gardening, each week.
The Lancet study found people in higher income countries were the least active
with those in the UK among the worst, as nearly two-thirds of adults were
judged not to be doing enough.
The researchers admitted comparisons between countries were difficult because
the way activity was estimated may have differed from place to place.
Nonetheless, they said they remained confident that their overall conclusion
was valid.
Pedro Hallal, one of the lead researchers, said: "With the upcoming 2012
Olympic Games, sport and physical activity will attract tremendous worldwide
attention.
"Although the world will be watching elite athletes from many countries compete
in sporting events... most spectators will be quite inactive.
"The global challenge is clear - make physical activity a public health
priority throughout the world to improve health and reduce the burden of
disease."
Prof Lindsey Davies, president of the UK Faculty of Public Health, agreed.
"We need to do all we can to make it easy for people to look after their health
and get active as part of their daily lives," she said.
"Our environment has a significant part to play. For example, people who feel
unsafe in their local park will be less likely to use it."
But others questioned equating smoking with inactivity.
While smoking and inactivity kill a similar number of people, smoking rates are
much lower than the number of inactive people, making smoking more risky to the
individual.
Dr Claire Knight, of Cancer Research UK, said: "When it comes to preventing
cancer, stopping smoking is by far the most important thing you can do."
Case study
Bogota
From Monday to Saturday, the streets of the Colombian capital of Bogota are
packed with cars.
The city - one of the largest in South America - is a teeming metropolis, home
to more than seven million people.
But on a Sunday vehicles are nowhere to be seen. Instead, the streets are taken
over by pedestrians and cyclists, thanks to Ciclovia, a traffic-free streets
initiative run by the city authorities.
The scheme, backed by successive mayors, has been running in one guise or
another since the mid-1970s.
It now covers nearly 100km of roads in the centre of the city on Sundays and
public holidays.
But as well as making Bogota a quieter place to roam, the ban on cars also has
a health benefit.
Research has shown about a million residents regularly walk around on a Sunday,
a fifth of whom say they would be inactive if it were not for the ban on
vehicles.
Dr Michael Pratt, who was involved in the Lancet research on physical
inactivity, said the Bogota scheme was a "wonderful example" of how governments
could be encouraging more exercise.
Sedentary lifestyle can kill