There’s no doubt about it, walking is good for you. It’s good for your heart, it’s good for your lungs, it’s good for the muscle and bone growth of your children and it’s good for your feeling of wellbeing! Strong scientific evidence now supports the many benefits to health of regular walking.
"I have two doctors, my left leg and my right."
George Trevelyan, 1913
"Walking is the nearest activity to perfect exercise".
Professor J Morris and Dr Adrianne Hardman, 1997
Health benefits of walking
Studies show that walking can:
- Reduce the risk of coronary heart disease and stroke
- Lower blood pressure
- Reduce high cholesterol and improve blood lipid profile
- Reduce body fat
- Enhance mental well being
- Increase bone density, hence helping to prevent osteoporosis
- Reduce the risk of cancer of the colon
- Reduce the risk of non insulin dependant diabetes
- Help to control body weight
- Help osteoarthritis
- Help flexibility and co-ordination hence reducing the risk of falls
(Sources: Davison & Grant 1993, US Dept of Health 1996, British Heart Foundation 2000)
Whether you want to walk to improve your general health, to keep fit, to control your weight, or perhaps to recover from a period of ill-health, walking can help. It is something that can be done with children or older family members, it need cost you nothing, and can fit in with any lifestyle, income bracket, culture or domestic circumstance.
Walking for general health and longevity
Regular participation in physical activity (like walking) is associated with reduced mortality rates for both older and younger adults (US Dept of Health 1996). In other words, walkers live longer!
In particular, walking has a high impact on cardiovascular disease. Fit and active individuals have around half the risk of cardiovascular disease compared to unfit inactive people. This level of risk is similar to smoking, high blood pressure or high cholesterol in causing heart disease.
Fit walkers are less likely to fall and suffer injuries such as hip fractures because the bones are strengthened; less likely to sustain injury because joints have a better range of movement and muscles are more flexible; less prone to depression and anxiety; tend to be good sleepers; and are better able to control body weight.
For general health, experts recommend accumulating a total of 30 minutes of brisk walking on most, preferably all days of the week.
(Sources: US Dept of Health 1996, UK Dept of Health 2000, Health Education Authority 1996)
Walking to increase fitness
Regular walking, like all ‘aerobic’ exercise, can have a dramatic effect on cardiorespiratory fitness or ‘aerobic power’. Regular exercise carried out three times a week for 30 minutes or more at the right intensity will result in increases of aerobic power (Davison & Grant 1993)
The intensity of walking for fitness benefits varies according to the age and fitness of the individual, but generally, ‘brisk is best’.
A simple way to work out how briskly you should walk is to aim to walk “fast without overexertion”. You should just about be able to hold a conversation while you are walking - the ‘talk test’.
For the more technically minded, you should aim for the ‘training zone. To calculate this, take your age away from 220. Then try to walk so that your heart rate is at least 45% of this figure. So for example a 40 year old would be aiming to have a heart rate of at least 81 beats per minute (220 - 40 x 0.45).
Even 10-minute brisk walks can increase fitness, provided that they are brisk enough. One study at Loughbrough University found that women walking continuously for 30 minutes 5 days a week had almost identical increases in fitness as women who split their 30 minutes into three 10-minute walks (Murphy & Hardman 1998). Perhaps even more encouraging was that the short walkers lost more weight and reported greater decreases in waist circumference than the long walkers.
Brisk is best - walk fast without overexertion.
Walking for weight control
Control of body weight occurs when the calories taken in as food are balanced with the calories expended through walking and other physical activities. The key issue for weight control is to maximise the total volume of calories used, (at any intensity) and to combine this with healthy eating.
Walking one mile (1.6km) can burn up at least 100kcal (420kJ) of energy and walking two miles (3.2km) a day, three times a week, can help reduce weight by one pound (0.5kg) every three weeks.
Walking also alters fat metabolism so that fat is burned up instead of sugars, helping to reduce weight.
Walk as much as possible - every little bit counts.
Walking for mental health
Walking has been shown to improve self esteem, relieve symptoms of depression and anxiety, and improve mood. Walking, particularly in pleasant surroundings, and with other people, offers many opportunities for relaxation and social contact.
Walking makes you feel good!
Walking to regain health after illness
Many GPs are now ‘prescribing’ gentle walking for people suffering from a range of conditions. In fact there are few people on most GPs lists who would not benefit from walking more.
If you have been ill, always take your doctor’s advice if it differs from what is written here. It is important not to increase the heart rate too suddenly. At first, you may be able to walk only a very short way at a gentle pace, but if you do this regularly you will soon increase your capacity for distance and pace.
One Ramblers member left hospital in a wheel chair after undergoing heart surgery and a couple of years later walked from Land’s End to John O’Groats.
What about children?
The majority of studies of young people indicate declining participation in physical activity. Only half of 11-16 year olds currently walk for ten minutes a day (Health Education Authority 1999). Children in Britain walk 50 miles a year less than they did a decade ago. Around 20% of children can be classed as overweight (Reilly et al 1999). TV, computers, cultural changes and fears for children’s safety out of doors play a large part.
Between 1986 and 1996 the proportion of under 17 year olds walking to school fell from 59% to 49%. British schools offer less physical education than do those in any other European country.
The Health Education Authority recommends that “all young people should participate in physical activity of at least moderate intensity for one hour per day. Examples of moderate intensity activities for all young people may include brisk walking, cycling, swimming, most sports or dance” (Cavill, Biddle & Sallis 2001).
Walking offers a great way to help kids get the active habit. If parents express excitement about the prospect of a walk in the countryside, they are more likely to transmit this feeling to their children. It’s important to treat the walk as an exploration or adventure and to go at the child’s pace, no matter how often they want to stop and look at things; take treats to eat and plenty to drink; and head for some landmark that will appeal to them such as a castle, a playground, an ice cream van or a boating pond. If children experience walking as part of a fun activity they are more likely to want to go again.
Walking - healthy and fun for all the family.
More about walking with children
Ideas for town and city dwellers
- Britain's towns and cities are full of lovely parks which are a pleasure to walk in and there's always one not far away. Or, put on a comfortable pair of shoes and walk around the block (or three or four blocks) where you live.
- If you travel to work or to take your children to school, try walking part of the journey either there or back. You could get off the train or bus a stop earlier or park your car further away. If this makes timing difficult, you could try doing it just one day a week.
- As well as town and city parks which are sometimes quite small and formal, there are often Country Parks on the outskirts of towns. These tend to be more varied areas where you can walk a longer distance in conditions more akin to the countryside. Find out from your local council where these areas are.
- If there's no alternative, you can walk on a machine at your local gym. But this bears no comparison to the fresh air and beauty you will find in the countryside or even in a park which has such a positive effect on a person's feeling of wellbeing and subsequent psychological health.
See also Urban Walks
Walking in your region or country
Where to go for more help
- More and more healthy walking programmes are being organised by Ramblers' groups, medical practices, councils and health authorities. Many of our Groups now offer walks for people who need short walks for a variety of reasons, such as having young children or being elderly, and there are even Groups such as Essex Friends which specialise in easy walks. Find your local Group.
- Our Lonc a Chlonc (Walk and Talk) programme in Wales provides short walks devised by our Groups as an introduction to people who are new to walking or unfit. Ask Ramblers Wales for details.
- The Walking the way to Health Initiative in England and Wales and the Paths to Health scheme in Scotland provide very short local led walks for complete beginners.
- Find out other local healthy walking schemes from libraries, health centres and GPs.
- Try a walk at a walking festival: our regular national festivals offer many walks aimed at those new to walking. See our events pages.
- See Walking with Children for advice about encouraging children to walk, and a list of books of family walks
- Join us and walk free of charge with a Group near your home under the leadership of an experienced guide. Most Groups offer a varied programme and you can try out one or two walks before joining. Even if you don't want to walk with a Group you could get lots of ideas and information from our quarterly magazine and annual yearbook, free to members.
Useful publications
- Take 30: a practical guide to walking to improve health and well being. Useful colour booklet with case studies, walking programme, excellent advice. Read online or download
- Take 30 poster, a ten-week programme for walking to health, presented as an attractive poster. Free: Order here.
- Ramblers' Regional Guides, a series of directories of walking opportunities, including signed routes, walks guidebooks, maps and much more. Order Here!
- Walking for Health by Dr William Bird and Veronica Reynolds, ISBN 1 903258 27 8. Carroll & Brown £14.99: Order Here!
A complete and authoritative but accessible guide co-written by two leading experts. Thorough sections on gear, first aid, food and drink, foot care, breathing and walking techniques and numerous ways of measuring your fitness and your progress, and day to day programmes from a variety of needs.
We stock many other useful publications: order here!
Calorie Maps.
Innovative maps indicating walking routes and the calories burned in walking them.
References
- British Heart Foundation 2000, Walking the Way to Health Newsletter 5.
- N Cavill, S Biddle and J F Sallis 2001, Health Enhancing Physical Activity For Young People: Statement Of The United Kingdom Expert Consensus Conference, Paediatric Exercise Science.
- Richard Davison and Stanley Grant 1993, 'Is Walking Sufficient Exercise for Health?' in Sports Medicine 16 (6): 369-373.
- Health Education Authority 1996. Moving On: International Perspectives in Promoting Physical Activity.
- Health Education Authority 1999, Young People and Health: Health Behaviour in School Aged Chidren. A report of the 1997 findings.
- Jerry Morris and Adrianne Hardman 1997, 'Walking to Health' in Sports Medicine 23 (5):306-332.
- M Murphy and A E Hardman 1998, 'Training effects of short and long bouts of brisk walking in sedentary women' in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 30:1:152-7.
- J J Reilly et al 1999, 'Prevalence of overweight and obesity in British Children: cohort study' in British Medical Journal 319:1039.
- George Trevelyan 1913, 'Walking' in A muse and other essays, London: Longman Green.
- UK Department of Health (2000), National Service Framework for Coronary Heart Disease.
- US Dept of Health and Human Services 1996, Physical Activity and Health: A report of the Surgeon General.
