Helsinki Times
7.11.2013
A LACK of exercise among all age groups in Finland comes with a high price tag, with a sedentary lifestyle increasing the risk of several national diseases and problems related to ageing. Physical inactivity also weakens learning results, shortens working careers and has a detrimental effect on the productivity of working life and our competitiveness.
Even if people take exercise in their free time, a large chunk of the day is spent in a sedentary manner from daycare and schools to workplaces and everyday lives of the older population. Already in daycare children are physically inactive 60 per cent of the time, with the figure going up to 80 per cent among working-age adults. For the sake of the Finnish population’s health and ability to function, we must get people moving.
Only a half of children and adolescents get enough exercise to boost their health, a trend which starts already at the age of three and under. Research indicates that lifestyles are formed already at this stage, with a sedentary lifestyle proving a particularly hard habit to shake off.
In its 2012 report on the budget, parliament emphasised the importance of savings that can be created through measures promoting health, reiterating that the goal of increasing exercise among all age groups concerns all administrative sectors. We should consider how things can be done differently with the same amount of money, revising the way the existing resources are channelled into measures aiming to promote physical activity.