The benefits of moderate to vigorous exercise are well known. But even a small amount of physical activity can improve health, a new study has found. If you want to increase your odds of living a long and healthy life , watch less television and become more physically active, because even a small amount of physical activity can improve overall health, according to an observational study published last month in Jama Network Open .
While there have been many studies showing that moderate to vigorous physical activity is associated with healthy ageing , researchers wanted to know if light physical activity compared with sedentary behaviours also improves healthy ageing and if not, how people’s time can be reallocated. They found that replacing a sedentary behaviour such as watching TV with even low-intensity activity - such as standing or walking around while cooking or washing clothes - increased one’s odds of healthy ageing. And at work, replacing some of the time spent sitting with simple movements such as standing or walking around the office can improve health.
“These findings indicate that physical activity need not be high intensity to potentially benefit various aspects of health, which have especially important public health implications as older people tend to have limited physical ability to engage in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity,” Molin Wang, an associate professor in epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and an author of the.
