They say:
Swapping your car for more physically active forms of travel may reduce your risk of heart disease, stroke and premature death, our latest research shows. Walking, cycling and even using public transport are all more physically active than using the car, so switching to one of these modes of transport can help you be more active and healthy.
Most physical activity studies focus on sport and recreational activity – intense activities often lasting many minutes. We are interested in understanding the impact of everyday activity on health. People lead busy lives. The challenge is to find ways for people to be active and stay active throughout life. For many, everyday activity, like walking or cycling for travel, may be more acceptable, attractive and practical than going to the gym.
For our analysis, we used a large cohort of over 350,000 adults, aged 37 to 73, from the UK Biobank study. At the start of the study people told us about their travel habits, as well as other important health behaviours, such as smoking. We compared people who only used the car for travel with those who undertook some walking, either alone or in combination with the car or public transport. People who cycled were also included in the active group, although few people in our study cycled.
We carried out separate analyses for those who regularly commuted and those who did not.
Image Travel to work
Credit: Max Bender
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge