There's no shortage of science suggesting that exercise is good for your mental as well as your physical health - and yet for many of us, incorporating exercise into our daily routines remains a struggle. A new study, published in the journal Neuropsychologia, asks why.
When anthropologist Herman Pontzer set off from Hunter College in New York to Tanzania to study one of the few remaining hunter-gatherer tribes on the planet, he expected to find a group of calorie-burning machines. Unlike Westerners, whoincreasingly spend their waking hours glued to chairs, the Hadza are on the move most of the time.
Exercise is like a wonder drug for many health outcomes: reducing blood pressure, reduces the risk of diabetes of heart diseases and slows developing cognitive impairment from Alzheimer's and dementia.
But as for losing weight, it helps more in weight maintenance than in losing the actual weight.
Exercise alone has a modest contribution to weight loss. But when you alter one component, cutting the number of calories you eat in a day to lose weight, doing more exercise than usual, this sets off a cascade of changes in the body that affect how many calories you use up and, in turn, your bodyweight.
Millions of us have jobs that require us to sit at desks or around conference tables for several hours per day. Many health risks are associated with sitting down for prolonged periods - but how do we stay active in the workplace? We find out.