Zumba! >> Squash! >> Tennis. >> Sailing! >> Basketball! >> Gardening. >> Football. >> Stair walking. >> Yoga. >> Dancing! >> Frisbee! >> Cycling. >> Judo. >> Basketball. >> Surfing! >> Running! >> Hill walking. >> Skipping. >> Highland dancing. [LAUGH] >> But what is physical activity? [MUSIC] >> Physical activity is any movement that uses energy. And being physically active is important for people of all ages. Physical activity can help reduce our risk for multiple diseases such as coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, some types of cancer. It can also improve our bone health, help us to maintain healthy weight, and also improve our overall quality of life. >> Physical activity is any movement that we do with our bodies. It can be quite light movement, like just walking around a little bit in your office or at home. It can be moderate activity, walking the dog, going along the pavement. It can be quite vigorous activity, running or playing sports. Any movement of the body is good for our health. Our bodies are built to move. >> We often hear of physical activity and exercise being used interchangeably. But do they really mean the same thing? >> I don't think it's now correct to use them interchangeably. Physical activity is the broad umbrella term that covers all bodily movements. But exercise is a very specific subset of physical activity. Exercise is pursued for health benefits, for fitness benefits. For example, we might start running to take part in a 10K run. This would improve our aerobic fitness. We might go to the gym to do strength training, and this will improve our strength fitness. We might go to a yoga or Pilates class to improve our balance and coordination, part of our fitness. And these are all exercise-related activities, because they're structured and we're largely pursuing them for fitness and health benefit. >> Now we know what physical activity is, and now we know the difference between physical activity and exercise. Let's see now how much physical activity we should be doing to gain health benefits. So let's go to check the physical activity guidelines. >> So what we want is that for children aged 5 to 18, that they do 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity every day of the week. That's running, jumping, all the usual play stuff. What we'd also like them to do is some vigorous activity for strengthening their muscles on at least 3 days a week to get the maximum health benefits. We would like adults to have moderate activity of at least 30 minutes, 5 days a week. So that's 150 minutes every week. We would also like them to have strength building activities and to minimize the time they spend sitting. But if you want to do 10 minutes a day, 5 minutes a day, that's better than nothing. >> We've just learned how much physical activity is needed to get health benefits. But let's see what is physical inactivity, and how it affects our health. Physical inactivity means very low levels of physical activity. For example, if we do not do 30 minutes of physical activity in a week, we can define ourselves as being physically inactive. Very low levels of physical activity can increase our risks of getting disease, for example, coronary heart disease type 2 diabetes, stroke, and cancer. Being physically inactive can also affect our bone health, and in time can lead to greater risks of getting osteoporosis. But a bit of physical activity is better than none at all. >> How active is the world, or how inactive is the world? [MUSIC] Evidence shows that worldwide, 31% of adults are physically inactive. >> Well, a third of the people in the world are not sufficiently active for good health. But not all groups are equally inactive. People from high-income nations tend to be less active than those from developing countries. Men tend to be more active than women. And we tend to get less active as we get older. Patterns that are similar in young people, boys tend to be more active than girls, and children get less active as they age. That's particularly the case in adolescents. As few as 20% of 13 to 15-year-old young people are not sufficiently active for good health. >> Now we know what physical activity is and what physical inactivity is. But what does it mean to be sedentary? >> Being sedentary is when we are sitting or lying down across the day. So for example, if you have a desk-based job, then it's likely that you spend quite a lot of your day sitting or sedentary. And other common examples of sedentary time in everyday life are sitting on the sofa to watch the television and sitting on motorized transport vehicles. So for example, driving in your car, taking the train or a bus, or sitting at home on a personal computer or on your tablet. And we know that people who have higher levels of sitting across their everyday lives are putting their heath at increased risk. And this seems to be even in individuals who are achieving physical activity recommendation. So, and we know that higher levels of sitting are linked with obesity and an increased likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease and some cancers, and even premature mortality. So we need to think of ways to sit less and be less sedentary in our everyday lives. And some of the ways that we can do this are to think about using alternative forms of transport. So can we use active transport like walking or cycling more often instead of relying on motorized transport all the time? Can we break up longer periods of sitting in the workplace and get up and move about more? Or could we consider spending less time sitting watching the television and try to move about more? >> Hope this video convinced you that regular physical activity is important for our health. And one of the best ways to be more active is to find activities that you enjoy doing, and make them part of your daily life. [MUSIC]
