MAKING CHANGES to our built environment would help counter low levels of physical activity in Ireland, a seminar has heard.
More than 130 delegates attending a joint seminar by the Institute of Public Health in Ireland and the UKCRC Centre of Excellence for Public Health heard that low levels of physical activity are contributing to long-term health problems.
Teresa Lavin, Institute of Public Health in Ireland (IPH) said that enhancing opportunities for physical activity in the built environment was essential in influencing the public in carrying out physical exercise.
“A recent IPH study forecasts a dramatic 40 per cent increase in the number of people living with hypertension, coronary heart disease, stroke and diabetes in the Republic of Ireland by 2020. It is essential we reverse this trend and one way is by creating environments which are conducive to physical activity such as walking and cycling,” she said.
“We need to locate shops and services – such as schools – nearer to housing schemes and ensure road systems within these estates are engineered to reduce car dependency.”
Prof James Sallis, director of active living research and professor at San Diego State University, noted that lack of physical activity was a key risk factor for chronic disease. “The reality is that these factors are distributed unevenly across society. Ensuring that all neighbourhoods have safe and attractive places for physical activity and have shops that sell affordable healthy foods is one way to reduce these inequalities.”