BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Feb. 24 (UPI) -- According to a study by Mayo Clinic, Americans average just 11 seconds a day of vigorous exercise.
The Mayo Clinic Proceedings study says that Americans of normal weight average less than 2 minutes of fat-burning activity per day and those considered obese averaged less than 1 hour per year. Researchers expected the results to be bad, but not this bad.
"We knew that the American public are incredibly sedentary. We tend to live from one chair to the next," says Dr. Edward Archer, a research fellow at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, "But even these findings surprised us. The limit -- how limited people's lives are. I mean they spend such a few number of hours in vigorous activities."
Archer explains that the reason behind the abysmal results is that Americans have engineered exercise out of their lives. While they were once in physically demanding jobs and lifestyles, people now sit at a desk and drive more often. He also says that people don't need to be training for marathons or be lifting weights everyday to improve the results.
"If we just spent 10 minutes going for a walk after breakfast, 10 minutes after lunch, and 20 minutes after dinner, we would decrease our healthcare cost, decrease the level of obesity in our country, we would have a dramatic impact on our health," explains Archer, "I mean it's just a small amount of activity every day."
[Huffpost Live]
