I happened to catch a segment on my local radio show about the latest report card and the thing that stuck out for me was the gender component of who isn’t getting enough activity, at least according to traditional measures. You can read the report itself here.
Overall, the report said there has been very little shift in who is getting enough exercise, but also that the study was moving away from traditional measures of physical activity as being primarily moderate-to-vigorous exercise (i.e., physical activity that is planned, structured, repetitive and done with the goal of improving fitness) to considering exercise that is less structured and in shorter bouts – things like active transportation or unstructured light activity such as play or social dancing.
Counting more activities is a good thing! I recently got back on my bike for short trips. Most of those rides were only for 5-10 minutes, but my smart watch said I met or exceeded the 150 minutes of moderate-vigorous exercise, even without counting all the steps I took while walking instead of sitting at work, or walking to do errands.
Those kinds of incidental exercise are what women seem to get while men are more likely to go to the gym or other structured activity.
The big challenge is how to track it. Not everyone wants to use a smart watch, or even thinks about it when going from a distant parking spot to the store, or walking to and from the bus stop, or playing with our kids in the park or walking the dog. But all those things absolutely count and we should be giving ourselves credit for that effort.
Maybe if we do, our results on the next survey will look better.
