KEY POINTS:
If it were a medicine, it would be branded a wonder drug. If it were a new therapy with an exotic name, people would be queuing for a session.
No treatment in the history of medicine has achieved what moving your arms and legs about can achieve. Yet more than a decade of effort to persuade us to up our dose has failed.
Every 15 minutes a Briton dies because he or she did not do enough exercise. Two thirds of the population fail to do the minimum to maintain health - 30 minutes of moderate physical activity five times a week.
The British Heart Foundation, which published the figures, is launching a three-week TV advertising campaign aiming to get the nation off its rear end.
A survey it commissioned found that fewer than four out of 10 people said they would take more exercise even if their lives depended on it.
Mike Knapton, director of prevention and care at the foundation, said: "With our busy lifestyles and labour-saving devices, we've stopped getting the exercise our bodies desperately need. Exercise has become an ugly word, something to avoid."
- Independent
