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30 Jun, 2015

The age of inactivity: How laziness is killing us

The Independent | NICK KNIGHT | 26 June 2015
 
Even Before Christ, Hippocrates saw exercise as an elixir of life. So why has inactivity become so appealing, and at what point did we forget that exercise makes us feel good?
 
Two thousand years ago, Hippocrates, the Father of Modern Medicine hit the nail on the head. He said, that if we all had “the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health”. Bingo.

Obviously then, being a species of great intellect, over the next two millennia we took on his sensible advice, integrating exercise into our daily life and cashing in on the rewards for our bodies and minds. Hmm, maybe we didn’t quite all get that memo. Instead something else happened and physical inactivity grew into the fourth largest global killer in the world (according to the World Health Organisation), with some claiming it takes more lives than smoking, diabetes and obesity combined.

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