WALK AND LIVE AT ANY SIZE

By Akin Ojumu

If, you are like me, you live a mostly sedentary lifestyle and you are somewhat petrified by what deleterious impact your stationary lifestyle may have on your overall well-being in the near future, do not despair, I’ve got good news for you.

A group of researchers from Harvard and University of Sydney, as well as from various institutions in Spain, Brazil, Chile, and Denmark, have solved the riddle of whether sedentary people might be able to offset the alarming health risks associated with sedentary lifestyles by taking daily walks.

The result of their pivotal research study was published recently in the British Medical Journal of Sports Medicine. What they found was that even the most sedentary among us could ward off the harmful effects of prolonged sitting by incorporating a few steps into their daily routine.

With just a couple of thousands steps a day, a sedentary person may be able to swing in his favor the odds of dying from cardiovascular disease (CVD), cancer and diabetes and, in the process, lengthen his lifespan. And the odds even get better if he has enough stamina and endurance to take more steps at a quicker pace.

The researchers analyzed data from 72,174 volunteers contributing to the United Kingdom Biobank, a large long-term dataset established in 2006 that plans to track participants’ health measures over at least 30 years.

According to the study findings, between 9,000 and 10,000 daily steps were optimal to counteract a highly sedentary lifestyle (which they defined as being sedentary for about 10 hours a day), lowering incident CVD risk by 21 percent and mortality risk by 39 percent.

The researchers also found that 50 percent of the benefits kicked in at around 4,000 to 4,500 daily steps, regardless of a participant's sedentary time. For half the steps, you enjoy up to half of the benefits. Sounds pretty good to me.

“Any amount of daily steps above the referent 2,200 steps per day was associated with lower mortality and incident CVD risk, for low and high sedentary time,” the researchers concluded.

“Accruing between 9,000 and 10,000 steps a day optimally lowered the risk of mortality and incident CVD among highly sedentary participants.”

The only limitation in this research study was the fact that participants with poor health in the first two years weren’t included in the study data. So, the findings apply only to people who, for at least the first two years’ worth of data, were generally healthy.

Nevertheless, this is darn good news for all my partners in sedentariness. All we need to do to significantly lower the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes is to take a walk around our living room for as few as 30 minutes a day. With a few short stroll of less than an hour around the neighborhood added to our daily routine, we’ll be able to live a longer and healthier life. That’s a pretty good deal in my book.

Just so I practice what I preach, I’ve already gotten myself a training outfit and a fitness monitoring watch to boot. To keep alive and well, I’ve set a target of 10,000 steps a day for myself.

For those interested in reading the original paper, the citation is hereby provided. Just copy and paste in Google: 

Br J Sports Med. 2024 Mar 8;58(5):261-268. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2023-107221.