Do you do your 30 minutes of exercise and then call it quits, spending the rest of the day catching up on Netflix?
While you have technically met the daily minimum exercise requirements, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), a new study finds it may be all for naught if you spend the rest of the day in ‘couch potato’ mode.
The study followed more than 3700 participants from Finland, aged about 46. They are part of a study group that has been tracked for health and fitness since birth.
Participants wore activity trackers for a week and it was found that those who exercised for 30 minutes a day and then sat for more than 10 hours recorded higher blood sugar, cholesterol and body fat.
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The study, published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, measured activity in six-second increments and then classified the participants into four groups based on their level of activity. They were: active couch potatoes, sedentary light movers, sedentary exercisers and movers.
Active couch potatoes recorded more than 10 hours of sedentary time and the lowest level of light physical activity although they exercised for 35 minutes a day.
Sedentary light movers recorded 480–600 sedentary minutes each day and about 60 active minutes a day. Sedentary exercisers had about the same sedentary time but exercised for more than 60 minutes a day. Active movers had less than 540 sedentary minutes a day, exercised more than 60 minutes a day and spent about 350 minutes a day doing light physical activity.
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Active couch potatoes were found to have the unhealthiest profiles of the four groups.
Although they moved enough to meet their daily exercise requirements of 30 minutes a day, the active couch potatoes had the poorest cardiometabolic health, which includes blood pressure, obesity, cardiovascular disease, insulin levels and cholesterol.
“It’s only in the last five years or so that we’ve begun to understand that physical activity isn’t the whole story,” said Raija Korpelainen, a professor of health exercise at the University of Oulu and co-author of the new study.
The study concluded that adults who meet the minimum health recommendations for activity (150–330 minutes per week), but did pretty much nothing else, would be better off replacing some of their time on the couch with some light exercise.
So more moving lightly, including cleaning; more walking to destinations instead of parking by the front door, and more general activity, even just a stroll to the letterbox.
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It would be even better if you can fit in a little more exercise. In the study, people who doubled their daily exercise to 60 minutes improved their overall health, but the authors said even just 10 or 15 minutes more each day could be beneficial.
The ‘sweet spot’ appears to be 80–90 minutes of light activity a day on top of a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise daily.
The study also says the ‘one-size-fits-all’ WHO recommendations for exercise and sedentary time should be reconsidered as they may not always be enough to improve health.
“Recommendations for an optimal combination of sedentary time and physical activity intensities, according to daily circumstances, may be needed to combat the escalating physical inactivity pandemic and sedentary lifestyle,” the study states.
There were limitations to the study, including the fact that while participants all had a range of health markers, they were almost all Caucasian and of the same age. Sleep patterns were also not considered as the activity trackers were worn only during the day.
What’s your exercise routine? Are you sure you’re doing enough? We’d love to hear your regime in the comments section below.
