Some Alarming Facts

It is a well known fact that every individual needs to spend 60 minutes of physical activity daily. Even after knowing it, very few people tend to keep themselves fit and healthy. Physical activity seems to inversely proportional to the age.

According to a survey, 77 % children whose ages ranged from 9 to 13 years spent their free time by participating in physical activities. Only 29% high school students participated in physical activities for 60 minutes or more for entire week. 15.2% students of high schools have not participated in 60 minutes of physical activities on any day of the week.

Compiling the overall results, only 36.6% males and 17.7% females spend 60 minutes of physical activity daily. These figures are quite depressing as only about 30% people are using their energies for sake of staying fit.

According to one of the reports, lack of exercise causes as many as 1 in 10 premature deaths around the world each year — roughly as many as smoking. In 2008, 5.3 million out of 57 million deaths were caused by inactivity. The report suggested that these deaths were mainly caused by four diseases namely Heart diseases, Diabetes Mellitus, breast cancer and colon cancer. This study further tells about reduction in deaths if we increase physical activity in our daily lives. 533,000 precious lives could be saved by just increasing our physical activities by 10%. Similarly, more than a million lives could be saved by reducing our inactivity by 25%.

The scientists performing this study further calculated the data for deaths caused by these four fatal diseases from 123 countries. They deduced that lack of exercise causes about 6% of heart diseases, 7% of diabetes mellitus(type 2), and 10% of breast and colon cancers.