Sport and physical activity
Research highlights leading a physically active life has numerous benefits on your health and wellbeing, these include:
- reduce your risk of developing non-communicable diseases and musculoskeletal disease such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and arthritis
- physical activity can boost self-esteem, confidence, mood and help reduce loneliness as well as reducing stress and depression
- being physically active helps maintain cognitive function, reducing the risk of developing dementia or Alzheimer’s disease
- reduce stress, social isolation and increase community cohesion
Luton physical activity statistics
Adults
- A third (33.5%) of the adult population considered inactive (those that do less than 30 minutes a week of physical activity), which is significantly worse than the national average (23.4%).
- Just over half (57%) of the Luton’s adult population are meeting the Chief Medical Officer’s activity guidelines (over 150 minutes of physical activity per week), which is considerably less when compared with the England average (66%).
Children and young people
- The Chief Medical Officers (CMO) Activity Guidelines states children and young people should complete at least 60 minutes of active per day across the week
- Data from Office Health Improvement and Disparities highlights 44.6% of children and young people in Luton are active this is lower than the England average of 47.2%.
Being physically active
Being physically active and reducing our time spent sedentary (sitting) is easy to do and we all have a different view on what being physically active means to us, but in order to experience benefits on our health and wellbeing we should all try to increase our activity levels daily and aim to achieve 150 minutes of moderate intensity per week.
There are so many different ways to be active and the most important thing is finding something you enjoy, this could be joining:
- the gym
- a local club
- walking
- cycling
Being physically active doesn’t necessarily mean playing a sport or going to a gym and it doesn't have to cost a huge amount. There are plenty of free or low cost opportunities such as walking and cycling. The most important thing is that you find something you enjoy doing.