Dr Sharmel­la Roopc­hand Mar­tin

En­gag­ing in reg­u­lar phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty helps to re­duce the risk of de­vel­op­ing sev­er­al dis­eases, in­clud­ing heart prob­lems, lung prob­lems, di­a­betes, and can­cer. But what do we mean by phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty?

The World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO) de­fines phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty as any bod­i­ly move­ment pro­duced by skele­tal mus­cles that re­sults in en­er­gy ex­pen­di­ture. We can en­gage in phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty in dif­fer­ent ways: through sport and ac­tive recre­ation, ac­tive meth­ods of trans­porta­tion, work, house­hold ac­tiv­i­ties, and oth­er leisure ac­tiv­i­ties.

En­gag­ing in phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty through sport and recre­ation can oc­cur in one of three ways. The first is elite sports par­tic­i­pa­tion, which in­volves struc­tured train­ing and com­pe­ti­tion. For pro­fes­sion­al ath­letes, this is al­so their job, and they would au­to­mat­i­cal­ly meet their phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty quo­ta for health ben­e­fits by ‘do­ing their job.’

Sec­ond­ly, it may in­volve struc­tured en­gage­ment in reg­u­lar sports and recre­ation. For ex­am­ple, I play foot­ball or crick­et with friends every week.

Third­ly, it may be in­for­mal. For ex­am­ple, there is an on­go­ing ac­tiv­i­ty, and peo­ple drop in at their con­ve­nience, a friend in­vites you to come along as a guest to a work­out ses­sion, or a group of friends de­cides to play a sport on the spur of the mo­ment.

Ac­tive trans­port refers to us­ing a method that in­volves phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty to get from point A to B in­stead of us­ing a mo­tor ve­hi­cle and walk­ing or rid­ing a bi­cy­cle in­stead of dri­ving a car to get where you are go­ing, tak­ing the stair­case in­stead of el­e­va­tors to move be­tween floors. The in­tent is not en­gag­ing in phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty but rather get­ting from point A to B, but by en­gag­ing in ‘ac­tive trans­port,’ you ‘kill two birds with one stone.’ You will get where you are go­ing, but you will al­so meet a por­tion of the rec­om­mend­ed dai­ly phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty lev­els for health ben­e­fits. Wheel­chair-bound peo­ple could ac­com­plish the same us­ing man­u­al wheel­chairs in­stead of au­to­mat­ed ones if their up­per limbs are func­tion­al.

The last method of en­gag­ing in phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty is through work, house­hold, and oth­er leisure ac­tiv­i­ties. Man­u­al labour­ers, for ex­am­ple, may be en­gaged in phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty for most of their day; like pro­fes­sion­al ath­letes, they may reach their phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty quo­ta by do­ing their job. Com­plet­ing house­hold tasks like mop­ping the house, hand-wash­ing clothes, and cook­ing - all in­volve some lev­el of phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty. Go­ing out to a par­ty and danc­ing are al­so forms of phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty.

It is im­por­tant to note that there can be over­lap be­tween these cat­e­gories of phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty. For ex­am­ple, one can en­gage in cy­cling as a sport but al­so cy­cle for the pur­pose of trans­port. The same goes for run­ning/walk­ing. Some­one may go danc­ing with friends at a par­ty, which is a leisure ac­tiv­i­ty, but they could al­so be part of a dance club or even a pro­fes­sion­al dancer. Every minute spent mov­ing adds up.

Take some time to re­flect on your day. Are you en­gaged in phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty through any of the means de­scribed? If so, how much are you do­ing? Is it enough for health ben­e­fits?

The WHO has rec­om­mend­ed that chil­dren aged five to 17 be en­gaged in at least 60 min­utes of mod­er­ate to vig­or­ous aer­o­bic phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty dai­ly, and they should be do­ing ac­tiv­i­ties that build strength at least three days per week. Adults 18 to 64 should do at least 150–300 min­utes of mod­er­ate-in­ten­si­ty aer­o­bic phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty per week and mod­er­ate lev­els of strength train­ing at least twice week­ly. Those 64 years and old­er should fol­low the same rec­om­men­da­tions for adults but should al­so in­clude ac­tiv­i­ties that em­pha­sise func­tion­al bal­ance and strength at least three days per week.

Preg­nant women with no med­ical com­pli­ca­tions, per­sons liv­ing with chron­ic dis­eases like high blood pres­sure and di­a­betes, per­sons with os­teo­poro­sis and HIV, and those with dis­abil­i­ties should all be try­ing to meet the same tar­gets de­scribed pre­vi­ous­ly. The main dif­fer­ence will be the mode of ac­tiv­i­ty to ac­com­plish the tar­get.

Aer­o­bic ac­tiv­i­ty is where the large mus­cles in the body move rhyth­mi­cal­ly for a sus­tained pe­ri­od, in­creas­ing heart rate and breath­ing. Aer­o­bic ac­tiv­i­ty in­cludes ac­tiv­i­ties like walk­ing, run­ning, swim­ming, and bi­cy­cling. If you are en­gaged in mod­er­ate-in­ten­si­ty work, you will no­tice that you are breath­ing hard­er, but you can still talk.

If you are do­ing a vig­or­ous-lev­el ac­tiv­i­ty, you may on­ly be able to say a few words be­fore you pause to breathe. For man­u­al labour­ers, con­tin­u­ous heavy dig­ging, shov­el­ling, and push­ing loaded wheel­bar­rows is vig­or­ous ex­er­cise. Sweep­ing and mop­ping the house may be mod­er­ate in­ten­si­ty. Re­mem­ber that any phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty is bet­ter than none, and more phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty is bet­ter than less.

Dr Sharmel­la Roopc­hand Mar­tin is a Se­nior Lec­tur­er in the Fac­ul­ty of Sport at UWI