Towards Long, Healthy and Happy Life: Essential Lifestyle Paths – Adequate Physical Activity

Exercise can be defined as, “Activity requiring physical effort, carried out to sustain or improve health and fitness,¹ while physical activity is “any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles, and requires energy expenditure”.² Physical activity refers to all movements including during leisure time, for transport to get to and from places, or as part of a person’s work.

Whereas exercise is usually structured and more or less regular, physical activity generally occurs in domestic and occupational tasks. Research has shown that physical activity also improves self-esteem, quality of sleep, mood, and reduces fatigue.³

Sedentary lifestyle and occupation, though may have reasonable degree of physical activity in some instances; contribute a lot to the health risk associated with physical inactivity.

Persons with sedentary occupation, who still comply with regular exercise schedule, run a higher risk of developing health problems associated with physical inactivity; than those in non-sedentary occupations, who also have regular exercise schedule.

The first evidence for this, that also demonstrates the harmful effects of physical inactivity was documented in a research conducted in 1953, where it was found that bus drivers had a higher rate of coronary heart disease than bus conductors.⁴

Bus drivers seat almost throughout the day, behind the steering, while conductors frequently open the bus door to let passengers in, or let them disembark from the bus. There is yet not any universally agreed length of time one should sit down, before breaking it up with some moments of standing, in other to minimize adverse health effects associated with sedentary behaviour and lifestyle.

It is difficult to recommend a generally implementable ‘sit’ and ‘stand’ interval for sedentary behaviour, since in certain situations such as meetings, lectures, or conferences; ‘sitting’ and ‘standing’ periods are completely beyond the control of individuals. It is however advised that persons in-charge of such events, occasionally ask participants to stand up and walk around a bit. 

In the year 2002, it was estimated that globally, about 1.9 million persons die prematurely each year as a result of physical inactive life style.⁵ This appears to have improved, since a more recent estimate by the World Health Organization in 2019 was that about 830,000 annual deaths can be attributed to people not being sufficiently physically active.⁶

Diseases Associated with Inactive Lifestyle

Diseases associated with inactive lifestyle include;⁵

• Hypertension
• Type 2 diabetes mellitus
• Cancers (colon, breast, prostate, cervix)
• Cardiovascular disorders
• Musculoskeletal diseases
• Psychological disorders (anxiety and depression)

People who are not sufficiently active have 20% to 30% more risk of dying earlier, when compared to sufficiently active people; and it has been documented that globally, more than 80% of adolescent population is insufficiently, physically active.^7,8

Generally, about a quarter (1.4billion) of global adult population are not sufficiently active, with 1 in every 3 women, and 1 in every 4 men being insufficiently physically active.⁷ Research has shown that people who are moderately physically active, regularly have risk of cardiac death reduced by 20 to 25%, among people who already have heart disease.⁹

Recommended Physical Activity in Adults

As at October 5, 2022, the World Health Organization recommendations for physical activity in adults were;¹⁰

1. At least 150–300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity in one week
2. OR at least 75–150 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity; or an equivalent combination of moderate- and vigorous-intensity activity throughout the week
3. Muscle-strengthening activities at moderate or greater intensity for all major muscle groups, on 2 or more days a week. These provide additional health benefits.
4. May do more than 300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity; or more than 150 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity; or an equivalent combination of moderate- and vigorous-intensity activity in one week.
5. Reduce the time spent being sedentary. Replacing sedentary time with physical activity of any intensity (including light intensity)
6. All adults should endeavour to do more than the recommended levels of physical activity

It is broadly recommended that you should exercise at least for 30 minutes daily for five days of the week, doing a total of 150 minutes per week.

In addition to scheduled exercises, you should make deliberate efforts to improve on the level of usual daily physical activities. Exercises can be aerobic or anaerobic. In aerobic exercises which is also called Endurance exercise, large muscles move in a rhythmic way for a sustained period of time.

Examples include walking jogging and cycling. On the other hand, anaerobic exercise consists of brief intense exercise, such as weightlifting and sprints, where oxygen demand exceeds oxygen supply.⁸ Usual daily physical activities can be improved by modifying, or introducing certain practices in one’s lifestyle such as;¹⁰

• Walking or cycling to, and from work or other places such as market, etc
• Using staircase in place of elevator in workplace, office, hotels, or other public places where the two options are available
• Taking a walk during lunchtime in office
• Dancing
• Active involvement in domestic chores
• Manual labour such as farming and gardening

REFERENCES

1. https://www.google.com/search?q=meaning+of+exercise&oq=meaning+of+exercise&aqs=chrome..69i57.16992822j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 (accessed, 06/07/2023)
2. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/physical-activity#:~:text=What%20is%20physical%20activity%3F,part%20of%20a%20person’s%20work. (accessed, 06/07/2023)
3. Schuch FB, Vasconcelos-Moreno MP, Fleck MP. The impact of exercise on Quality of Life within exercise and depression trials: A systematic review. Mental Health and Physical Activity, No 4, 2011, pp. 43-48
4. Morris JN, Heady JA, Raffle PA, et al. Coronary heart disease and physical activity of work (parts 1 and 2). Lancet, 262, 1953, pp. 1053–7, and pp. 1111–1120
5. WHO – World Health Organization, The World Health Report, reducing risks, promoting healthy life, WHO, Copenhagen, 2002. Available at: http://www.who.int/whr/2002/en/
6. Global Burden of Disease Collaborative Network, Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 (GBD 2019) Results (2020). Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation – IHME) https://vizhub.healthdata.org/gbd-results/
7. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/physical-activity (accessed, 06/07/2023)
8. World Health Organization. HEARTS. Technical package for cardiovascular disease management in primary health care. Healthy-lifestyle counselling. World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, 2018.
9. Merz CN and Forrester JS (1997). “The secondary prevention of coronary heart disease”. American Journal of Medicine, 102: 573-80.
10. World Health Organization (2020). WHO guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour. Geneva, Switzerland.