Exercise snacking: the life-saving impact of moving your body, even just a little at a time, throughout the day | The Guardian

Headlines are quick hits from media outlets from Missouri and around the world. Follow the headline link for the full story. The source of this headline says:

Small steps such as this are worth it: research has shown that if people nudge their body into even tiny amounts of effort, it can bring astonishing benefits. For years, the mantra was that people should aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate activity a week, ideally in half-hour chunks. But as I-Min Lee, the Harvard professor and leading light of inactivity studies, tells me, doing something is almost always better than nothing.

Lee led a fascinating study, published in 2019, which showed that, for all the focus on 10,000 steps a day, among a sample of older US women, those who managed 4,400 steps had nearly half the chance of dying during the research period than those who averaged 2,700. Updated health guidance now talks up activity in chunks of as little as 10 minutes.
Young male athlete running up the stairs
Blend activity into your day: take the stairs, or make phone calls while on walks. Photograph: Getty Images

And when you do start moving, the impact is immediate in effect, and astounding in extent. The US government guidelines on activity note that, on the same day you manage a single period of moderate-to-vigorous activity, you will see a reduction in blood pressure, better insulin sensitivity, improved sleep, fewer anxiety symptoms, and improved cognitive function. In the longer term, two separate studies have found people who regularly cycle to work enjoy a 40% lower chance of early death compared to those who don’t, even when accounting for other lifestyle factors.

Link: 

Exercise snacking: the life-saving impact of moving your body, even just a little at a time, throughout the day | The Guardian

MoBikeFed comment: This entire article is well worth a read. It focuses on the difficulty of incorporating regular exercise throughout the day when so many of us spend the entire day at home or in various stages of lockdown due to the pandemic.

But the centerpiece is a point that has become much more clear thanks to research in recent years: Incorporating small doses of exercise throughout the day is very, very effective in improving health.

This can be as simple as walking for five or ten minutes every hour or two, or bike riding to an errand or two during the day.

Building active living into your everyday life is the key.

This is a different--and complementary--approach to the typical exercise scenario, which envisions a few longer periods of more intense exercise throughout the week.

Those longer and more intense exercise periods are more beneficial, too, but many people do not have the interest or the time to do that type of exercise. "Exercise snacking" can help fill that gap for those people.

On the flip side, people who do lengthy and intense exercise several times a week would see additional benefits by breaking up long periods of sitting or sedentary activity with short walks or small "exercise snacks" of that sort.

How does this all relate to the work we do at the Missouri Bicycle & Pedestrian Federation?

We have long recognized the importance to Missourians of being able to integrate activities like walking and bicycling into daily life. That means we need to make every neighborhood, every community in Missouri a safe place to walk and bicycle.

Many studies have shown the health impact these local facilities have on community health. When people can walk and bike more, and do it safely, the do. When neighborhoods and streets discourage walking and bicycling, people do it less and the outcome can clearly be seen in community health measures.

We need to make every neighborhood and every community in Missouri a safe place to walk and bicycle!