Why is exercise important?

When it comes to staying healthy, there are three main behaviours to focus on: exercise, diet, and smoking. An unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and smoking are the leading causes of the four diseases that lead to around 60% of deaths worldwide. These diseases are diabetes, heart disease, certain cancers, and lung disease. Simply by improving your diet, exercise habits, and not smoking, your chances of developing these devastating chronic illnesses are reduced.

According to Discovery Vitality’s Healthy Active Kids South Africa (HAKSA), the country’s children spend far too much time being inactive, especially because they tend to spend too much time in front of screens like televisions and computers. But, according to Discovery Vitality’s ObeCity index, adults are also inactive. Physical activity is a very important part of a healthy lifestyle; here are some reasons why:

• Exercise can help you achieve and maintain a healthy weight. This is because when you exercise, you burn energy in the form of kilojoules that you take in. This can help create a kilojoule deficit to help you lose or maintain weight.
• Exercise can help reduce your risk of chronic disease. Since your heart is a muscle, exercise can help to strengthen it. This can help reduce your risk of heart disease. It’s also good for your arteries because it help to control blood glucose and blood cholesterol. Exercise has also been shown to reduce the risk or symptoms of mental health illness like depression.
• Exercise helps to relieve stress. This is because exercise releases a flood of feel-good hormones into your brain which helps to reduce stress and boost mood.
• Exercise improves energy levels. It stands to reason that the fitter you are, the more energy you have to perform everyday tasks like walking up the stairs or carrying heavy objects.
• Exercise helps you sleep well. Being sleep deprived has many negative health effects, but exercising even lightly for most days of the week can help you to sleep better.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that adults get at least half an hour of exercise five times a week, but children aged five to 17 years old need about an hour of exercise daily. This may seem like a lot, but children are naturally more active than adults. Break time at school, sports practice, physical activity, and about of family-based exercise daily can help them meet their exercise needs. Children need to exercise to develop healthy muscles and bones, as well as a healthy heart and lungs. Their coordination and movement control is also improved greatly through exercise. Importantly though, it helps to maintain a healthy body weight.

Luckily, Discovery Vitality can help you to ensure that your kids get all the exercise that they need. Vitality’s Gym and Fitness benefit offers some great ways to help you and your kids more active and earn Vitality points. There are many great ways to get fit and healthy with your kids to set them on a path of good habits for their whole life.

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