Cycle News Friday, November 12, 2004

Get off your sofa and exercise your rights

Do you take the escalator or lift instead of the stairs? If you need to go to the shops for a newspaper or some milk would you jump in the car rather than get on your bike?

If so, then you are probably contributing to Britain's growing obesity problem - a problem that has quadrupled in the last 25 years.

Not only that, research shows if you do not take enough exercise you are also more likely to become diabetic and your mental health may suffer.

The extent to which today's sedentary lifestyles are affecting our well-being has become one of society's biggest issues.

In just one generation whole populations have gone from

being relatively active to couch potatoes.

The Hollywood hit The Day After Tomorrow may have focused people's fears about global warming, but the movie Super Size Me has shown how increasing obesity problems are threatening to have a huge impact on the Western world.

Against this backdrop, the work of a team of academics at the University of Birmingham is becoming increasingly - and internationally - relevant.

So much so that bosses at the university have sanctioned a multi-million pound rebuild of its School of Sport and Exercise Sciences to help boost its world-leading research.

Among other things, the centre will look at how exercise can be used to treat obesity, diabetes, victims of stroke, and psychological problems.

Prof Doug Carroll, head of

the school, said: "We are living in a society that is less energetic.

"Surprisingly, we don't eat much more than we did before - if anything our intake has gone down, but we eat different kinds of stuff. We are increasing calorie intake through more sugar."

Prof Carroll believes getting people to expend more energy is the key to future public policy.

It is, however, not something that can be achieved simply by lecturing people to change their ways.

"We have been doing that for the last 20 years and it has been unsuccessful," he said.

"We need to look at more subtle ways. For example, encouraging people to commute to work instead of driving by providing cycle lanes.

"Or getting people to use stairs rather than escalators

by giving them the choice. It also means thinking about new buildings. Do we have adequate showers for people who cycle to work? Are stairs provided?

"We have moved at times in recent architecture from having a choice of stairs or escalators to having just escalators."

Future health policy should be less driven by public warnings and focused more on incentivising healthy living, Prof Carroll believes.

"We tend, as animals, to be about conserving energy," he said.

"If we have a choice between escalator and stairs people will take the escalator but they can be persuaded to take the stairs by having jazzy prompts, for example a banner saying 'do your heart some good and take the stairs'."

Prof Carroll's specialist

area of research focuses on how exercise and psychological stress affect the immune system.

"There is evidence that moderate levels of exercise will improve our immunity to the various challenges that happen to us. It is about realising that infection is not just a case of being exposed to a virus and getting sick. There are a lot of other things going on."

Construction is currently under way to build the new three-storey research centre where experiments will be carried out largely on human volunteers.

Studies currently being conducted at the unit include more sport-specific programmes, like the effects of over-training on athletes.

Obesity has grown faster in England than anywhere else in Europe

Three quarters of adults are overweight, with 22 per cent clinically obese

Overall obesity rates have risen four-fold in the last 25 years and the number of seriously over-weight children has tripled in the last 20 years

Obesity costs the NHS £7.4 billion a year in treatment for heart disease and symptoms related to diabetes

Obesity is now the second biggest avoidable cause of cancer after smoking