Is ten minutes of walking really too much to ask?
Walking: Surely everyone can manage ten minutes' brisk walking once a month? Apparently not... - Credit: © ARCHANT NORFOLK PHOTOGRAPHIC 2
Opinion: Whatever happened to our get up and go, says Sharon Griffiths
Our get up and go has got up and gone.
Millions of Britons – 40pc of those between 40 and 60 – don't manage to walk briskly for even ten minutes a month. Not ten minutes a day, or a week - but a month. Which, by any standards, is pathetic.
The longer you don't take even the most minimal exercise, the harder it is to start, so you end up suffering from all sorts of illnesses. It will make for an uncomfortable and miserable old age – if we get that far.
Public Health England has developed an app to encourage people to get off their bums for ten minutes a day. An app? For ten minutes? How complicated can it be to work out how to walk for ten minutes?
Because of illness and accidents, I've had occasional spells in my life when I've been unable to walk and it's absolutely wretched. That's why now I stride out – or potter, or amble – whenever I can, because I can remember when I couldn't.
If you do nothing else this Bank Holiday, then go for a walk. Ten minutes won't kill you. But not doing it might.
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