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.
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.

BBC News - Inactivity 'killing as many as smoking' (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-18876880)

the last sentence looked extremely funny to me (what could be easier and cheaper than taking a walk?), but I'm not a resident of a megacity with gangs lurking in parks, so maybe I was unfair.
Sigh.
Out now, to exercise? :E



.

BBC News - Inactivity 'killing as many as smoking'

Likely there's a distant cousin of the Devil, situated in a cubicle somewhere, who is dedicated to the form of mischief involving press announcements regarding wholly tendentious and self-serving proclamations by one group or another - inevitably working on extrapolations of the premise that Humanity will perish if X bit of advice is not diligently followed.

Where is the Balderdash patrol when most needed?

Probably out for a stroll.

The biggest single cause of worldwide deaths is from the car. The number is so large that if it were a disease it would be called a pandemic and drug companies would be lining up to make a pill for it. A follow-on from that is that the car reduces the desire to walk. I worked with a colleague who drove his car to work and back everyday and we could see his house from where we worked. He said he needed the car to carry all his work things but admitted that most of what was in his car he never used. There really is no hope . . . (off for a bike-ride)

You talk a load of crap.

WHO statistics (SOURCE (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/index.html)):-
Cause Megadeaths Percentage

Ischaemic heart disease 7.25 12.8%
Stroke and other cerebrovascular disease 6.15 10.8%
Lower respiratory infections 3.46 6.1%
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease 3.28 5.8%
Diarrhoeal diseases 2.46 4.3%
HIV/AIDS 1.78 3.1%
Trachea, bronchus, lung cancers 1.39 2.4%
Tuberculosis 1.34 2.4%
Diabetes mellitus 1.26 2.2%
Road traffic accidents 1.21 2.1%

Somewhat far from the biggest single cause of worldwide deaths, unless you are postulating that the car causes IHD, and even then as something like 90% of the worls population don't have a car it is not likely that the "lack of excercise due to car ownership" would apply to them.

UFO
Apologies for the layout of the table, it comes out all right on the "create post" form.

All the crap that comes out of the exhaust of cars can easily contribute to a fair chunk of that list, UFO.


Anyway, the lack of exercise issue has been known for some time, along with poor diet. It's just another exercise in stating the bleeding obvious.

By coincidence I have just been reading in the Economist the results of one such study where people were asked how much exercise they took - walking, cycling, swimming, gym etc.

So a guy working 4 hours a day 6 days a week unloading full boxes of fish in a London market, and who has a second job in the afternoon collecting stacked newspapers who replied "no time for any of that" is marked as "takes no exercise - unfit" in the survey. (Actual example of one person seen interviewed on "fitness" on TV).

So much for surveys !

I blame the media. If so many people get paid for reporting news, news will be found from somewhere? :}

OFSO----LOVE IT!!!


Is it true?

Another survey a few days ago concluded that people in a stable relationship were more likely to be contented than those whose relationships had ended.

Who'd have thought it? :rolleyes:

BBC News - Inactivity 'killing as many as smoking' so how many Olympic size swimming pools would they fill? I think we should be told...

UniFoxOs

Not convinced I believe those figures, despite the source
Either they're wrong, or Malaria has been incorrectly labelled as the biggest killer for many years

The actor Peter o'Toole's comment when asked if he took exercise.
His reply was "I only get exercise when walking with the coffins of my friends who exercised".
:ooh:

Just shag your brains out every night to keep fit. Great exercise regime! :ok:

Dunno about tossing off - would a real earth-shattering knee-trembler qualify
as having the same fitness benefits as a heavy bonk sesh?

48BHFpw5DGs

Milo,
Not convinced I believe those figures, despite the source

Not sure I totally believe them either, however in 2010, in UK, there were about 238000 deaths in total, and 1850 RTA fatalities, or about 0.8%, and therefore certainly nowhere near The biggest single cause of worldwide deaths as our fellow prooner and anti-car fanatic was wishing to impress upon us.

Cheers
UFO

And yes, if there were that many people killed by an aircraft in a year the whole fleet of that type would be immediately grounded until a cause was found, but our spineless pollies continue to hide behind the mantra of "Speed and Drink" while ignoring the fact that over 90% of crashes are caused by driver error (source: Transport and Road Research Laboratory) as the idea of better driver training and testing would cost them too many votes.

And what Slasher said, except when you get to my age it has to be first thing in the morning while I still have the strength.