The swelling tide of ‘couch potatoes’ in UK is getting heavier on the shoulders of NHS as it costs the NHS more than £1 billion a year. Researchers from the Oxford University have come up with unveiling this fact. According to these researchers, people with couch potato lifestyle were directly responsible for 3% of all deaths and illness in 2002 alone.
Perhaps this is for the first time that these researchers have graphed out how people’s couch potato lifestyle is causing a big hole in nation’s pocket. Further, the same study states that about 287,206 people died from diseases associated with inadequate physical workout just in the period 2003/04. Strangely enough, about 35,000 of these deaths were directly linked to physical inactivity. It shows that how badly physical inactivity is embroiling people with the strands of diseases, which prove the following remark of the researchers:
One third of all deaths are due to diseases, which could be at least partly reduced by increased physical activity.
This is quite strange to know that only coronary heart disease was found costing £526 million, which shows how baldy the people in England are getting prone to health problems in which heart diseases are having the upper hand. Moreover, this fact cannot be denied that in the recent years, England has emerged as a country with most obese people in Europe and is fast heading to be the fattest nation on the planet.
Bottom life
This is quite a bigger issue before government, health officials and most importantly before the people of England because without mental and physical health, all economic, social and cultural developments are bound to diminish badly.
A look at Britons health problems:-
� Britons ‘ignoring’ dementia signs
� One in 20 Britons ‘are alcoholic’
� One in five young Britons suffer mental health problems
� Britons have problems with sex
� Half of Britons suffer headaches
Here is it important to note that England is not the only country where people’s participation in physical activities is getting lessened but from all round the world often news, heralding growing physical inactivity among people do come in, which confirms that from behind this unhealthy trend (couch potato lifestyle) the tide, containing diseases, health problems, is swelling, which, if not checked, may hit this world hard.
At this moment, I recall an adage, if money is lost, nothing is lost but if health is lost, everything is lost. Therefore, I think people will have to be more conscious about their health and that is possible just by adopting a healthy lifestyle in which there is adequate room for physical activities.
Image credit: In Magine
Via:In the News