Did you do your run today? Really?

When it comes to physical activity, there are two kinds of people. There are those who love their daily run/bike/swim and those who avoid it at all cost. Folks in the first group probably are not aware of a thing called Department of Health and Human Services Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans (I am pretty sure it applies to other nationalities too). Don't look at it, you are probably overdoing it anyway. If you are in the target demo though (group 2), the document could be a good starting point.

So, how closely do people follow the guidelines? Three researchers, from Iowa, North Dakota and Washington D.C. set out to answer:

Physical Activity in U.S. Adults: Compliance with the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans

The guidelines ask for a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate physical activity (75 if vigorous. Running counts as vigorous). When asked, people reported an average of 324.5 minutes of moderate and 73.6 minutes of vigorous activity. According to these numbers, 62% of adults were active enough, ergo all this obesity and heart disease and diabetes and such was caused by evil spirits. It was time to call the evil spirit department and pop the champagne.

Some smarty pants grad student probably came along at this point and said "hey, why don't we validate these results with some sciency gizmos and then we can pop the champagne". The kid was probably just trying to get a project going to guarantee his continued employment (and in this climate can you really blame him!), but we scientists just love gizmos and anything related to gizmos (even the word "gizmo") and especially those that are sciency. So, they did. With some accelerometers.

The results are truly amazing. Average duration of moderate activity fell down to 45 minutes, while vigorous activity was down to 18 minutes. Less than 10% of adults were following the guidelines.  

So, how did this happen? Were their accelerometers broke? Maybe. But looks like this is a commonly used method for measuring physical activity. Were people lying? I don't think so. Why would they? There is no incentive to lie here. What happens most likely is people who don't like to be active overestimate time spent walking to their car, the stairs they climb or the boxes they carry. Also, they probably count activities that wouldn't qualify. For example, for walking to count as moderate activity, you should be walking briskly.

What do we do then? Do we all get accelerometers? Not very practical. But paying attention to your routine for a few days, measuring how many steps you climb, how many minutes you walk around etc; should give a general idea. From there you can make improvements to catch the 150 minute goal (e.g. walking faster or taking the stairs for a few floors).

Also, please remember that there is no penalty if you exceed the recommended dosage. In fact, it is encouraged.

(image from Flickr)