Walk to School Week 2013 takes place as part of National Walking Month every May with the focus on getting children to ditch the bus or car and get out and walk to school.
But new research suggests that as many as 25% of adults in the UK walk less than one hour a week and, according to a YouGov survey, another 43% reported walking for less than two hours a week.
The British Heart Foundation (BHF) advises that ‘moderate intensity aeorobic acitivity’ (eg. walking, gardening and climbing stairs) is the most effective type of activity for maintaining a healthy heart.
Aerobic activity is described as a ‘repetitive rhythmic exercise involving large muscle groups such as legs, shoulders and arms’.
Moderate intensity activities should make a person feel warmer, breathe harder and make their heart beat faster than usual. But, they should still be able to have a conversation.
Now that we have been blessed with some warmer and drier weather, we have no excuse to stay indoors!
To help you get into the habit of taking regular exercise try some simple tips to get you started:
- When you go shopping, park further away from your destination – this will even work in your supermarket car park and you can push your trolley back to the car rather than having to carry heavy loads
- try to use the stairs rather than the lift in offices, car parks and shopping centres
- get into the habit of a walk around the block or up and down your road, at the same time every day – before or after work as time allows
- join up with some friends to give you an incentive to walk
- get off the bus one stop earlier than you need to and walk the rest of the way
To read the full report click on the following link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22401589
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