Exercise Is A Fat Chance For Most

The Age

Saturday October 27, 2007

David Wilson

Research shows that three out of four Australian adults fail to find sufficient time for exercising.

A couple of weeks back we noted that Australia is becoming a nation of fatties, with a 45 per cent increase in overweight people over the past decade.

That's despite the quarter-decade-long health and exercise fad that has seen a huge increase in the number of gyms throughout the country, along with jogging, cycling and walking.

Exercise benefits people both physically and psychologically. It is a well-recognised antidote to the stress people suffer in their work and domestic lives.

By now, just about everybody has had the health message drummed into them. It's like the evils of smoking: if you aren't aware of them, you must be living on the moon.

Federal health authorities recommend a minimum physical activity (brisk walking or medium swimming/cycling) of 30 minutes a day at least five days a week.

Thirty minutes? That's not much time out of a 24-hour day.

Well, it must be for a lot of people, because the International Journal of Obesity informs us that three out of four Australian adults don't measure up to the minimum recommendations.

And one of the reasons people put up for not doing 30 minutes of exercise a day is that they don't have the time. They argue that their work and home arrangements don't allow the time to de-stress via exercise.

There is continued debate about the average number of hours we work but no doubt more and more of us are working those hours over a 24/7 span. And there is no doubt we are working harder than ever before.

So is there a real problem finding 30 minutes for exercise?

Work-family specialist Eva Cox thinks so. She says people caught in the vortex of the work/life balance - and in particular, parents - would be "lucky to find 10 minutes a day".

"By the time these people have got up, got themselves ready for work, the kids ready for creche, gone to work, done the shopping, picked the kids up, etc, where's the time for exercise?

"We live in a society that you can't even walk to the local shop for exercise. You have to drive a car."