Surgeon General’s Prescription for Health: Walk More
Walking image via forklift/flickr. Reproduced at Resilience.org.
We’ve always known walking is good for us— it burns calories, reduces stress and helps the environment.
But we never knew how really great it is for us until the just released Call to Action on Walking from US Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy, who explains, “An average of 22 minutes a day of physical activity – such as brisk walking – can significantly reduce the risk of heart disease and diabetes. The key is to get started because even a small first effort can make a big difference in improving the personal health of an individual and the public health of the nation.”
Surgeon General Murthy announced a national campaign to encourage Americans to walk more and make all communities safer and easier for walking. His office will partner with schools, citizens groups and businesses to meet these goals.
“Walking is a simple, effective and affordable way to build physical activity into our lives,” Murthy adds. “That is why we need to step it up as a country ensuring that everyone can choose to walk in their own communities.”
The landmark report—which is being compared to the Surgeon General’s 1964 warning on the dangers of smoking—is based on definitive medical evidence that moderate physical exercise boosts your health cuts your chances of diabetes, dementia, depression, colon cancer, cardiovascular disease, anxiety and high blood pressure by 40 percent or more.
A major study released this year shows that lack of exercise is twice as deadly as obesity, according to Cambridge University researchers who studied more than 300,000 people over 12 years. Their findings match another comprehensive studythat found sitting for long periods is linked to higher death rates.
This explains why the Surgeon General and a growing chorus of health care experts are singing the praises of walking.
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