Walking Helps

The rates of obesity and Diabetes are rapidly increasing. It is well-known that increasing your physical activity does wonder for your blood sugar levels and other complications that are associated with Diabetes. Walking is one of the best options for people with Diabetes. You can do it at your pace and most people are comfortable to accommodate 30 minutes of walking in their daily routine.

Sprawling neighbourhoods and urbanisation offer little space to enjoy the wonders of walking. Keeping the same fact in mind, a study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association examined whether walk able urban neighbourhoods are associated with a slower increase in overweight, obesity, and Diabetes than less walk able ones. A total of 8777 neighbourhoods were included in this study.

It was observed that in areas with higher neighbourhood walkability was associated with decreased prevalence of overweight and obesity and decreased incidence of diabetes than people who live in sprawling neighbourhoods. Thus, suggesting that any amount walking really does wonder for your health.

However, the ecologic nature of these findings and the lack of evidence that more walkable urban neighbourhood design was associated with increased physical activity suggest that further research is necessary to assess whether the observed associations are causal.

Source: The Journal of Medical Association