How to quit a sedentary lifestyle: ReMark's Health & Wellness series

ReMark recently published the Five Pillars of Health, a whitepaper that explores how we can live more holistically across five key aspects of wellbeing. These activity metrics are central to our award-winning health & wellness engagement app Good Life, which motivates and rewards users for healthy living. In this article, we focus on Physical Health, the first pillar in the whitepaper. 

Why keep active?

Regular physical activity has significant benefits for our health. Making it a habit, whether that’s a Saturday afternoon bike ride, an evening walk in the local park or a 30-minute gym session before work, can have far-reaching effects on our health and wellness.

Keeping active can help prevent and treat noncommunicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer and diabetes. It will also reduce the risk of hypertension and obesity and improve cognitive health, mood, and overall wellbeing.

The good news for anyone who has avoided exercise since school sports lessons is you don’t need to book on to a daily three-hour bootcamp session or start running early morning marathons. Just a small increase in your activity levels can reap huge benefits.

Risks of physical inactivity

Physical inactivity is widely accepted as an urgent public health crisis. The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Global Action Plan on Physical Activity 2018-2030 sets a target of a 15% relative reduction in the global prevalence of physical inactivity in adults and adolescents by 2030.[1]

It’s easy to see why the WHO wants to change habits. Its study on worldwide trends in physical activity levels between 2001 and 2016 found that more than a quarter of the world’s population – 27.5% – did not meet its guidelines for 150 minutes of physical activity a week[2].

How getting active benefits health

Prioritising action to reverse the inactivity trend is essential. Being more active more often can reverse many of these risks to our health.

• 40-53% reduction in risk of all-cause mortality[3]

• 21% reduction in mortality risk by increasing your volume of activity from 15 to 20kJ/kg a day[4] with moderate-vigorous intensity exercise linked with the greatest reduction in risk

• 20-34% reduction in mortality risk and 14% reduction in cardiovascular risk by increasing physical activity levels above 600 metabolic equivalent minutes (see box) a week (equivalent to 150 minutes of brisk walking)[5]

Understanding how regular exercise improves an individual’s health can help to create an engaging wellness programme. Want to know more about the steps you can take to make physical activity a regular habit? 

Referencias

[1] 9789241514187-eng.pdf (who.int) More Active People for a Healthier World, WHO

[2] Guthold, R., Stevens, G. A., Riley, L. M. & Bull, F. C. Worldwide trends in insufficient physical activity from 2001 to 2016: a pooled analysis of 358 population-based surveys with 1·9 million participants. Lancet Glob. Health 6, e1077–e1086 (2018).

[3] Paluch, A. E. et al. Daily steps and all-cause mortality: a meta-analysis of 15 international cohorts. Lancet Public Health 7, e219–e228 (2022)

[4] Strain, T. et al. Wearable-device-measured physical activity and future health risk. Nat. Med. 26, 1385–1391 (2020)

[5] Lear, S. A. et al. The effect of physical activity on mortality and cardiovascular disease in 130 000 people from 17 high-income, middle-income, and low-income countries: the PURE study. The Lancet 390, 2643–2654 (2017).