It’s no secret that the obesity levels in the United States have risen sharply since the 1960s. The causes of America’s rapid increase on the scale are multi-faceted. A 2011 study, for example, found that the obesity epidemic can at least, in part, be attributed to the drop in manual labor since the 1960s.

In the 1960s over half of the private industry jobs in the United States required at least moderate-intensity physical activity. As of 2011, less than 20% of jobs required a degree of physical activity. As physical activity levels in the American workforce decreased, so did the estimated number of calories expanded during the American workday. And probably not too surprisingly, the weight of the average American began to increase.

As our work-related physical activity decreased, so did our non-work-related physical activity. Household chores requiring a degree of physical activity have been replaced with machines. Leisure time that was spent playing, running, and jumping has decreased with the advent of the internet, which has increased sedentary behavior and obesity.

It is well documented that weight gain boils down to more calories consumed than expended. And though much of the blame is attributed to diet, the reduction in calorie-burning physical activity is at least part of the problem.

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Why You Need to Find Ways to Move

Increasing your physical activity levels can save your life.

According to the World Health Organization, physical activity can reduce the risk of several life-threatening diseases:

1. Risk of all-cause mortality
2. Risk of cardiovascular disease mortality
3. Incident hypertension
4. Incident site-specific cancers (bladder, breast, colon, endometrial, oesophageal adenocarcinoma, gastric and renal cancers)
5. Incident type-2 diabetes

How much physical activity is needed to reduce those risks exactly? Most research points to at least 150 minutes a week. This may seem like a daunting amount if you don’t engage in much physical activity at all. But rest assured you can chip away at this number with small actions that will add up over the week.

According to James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, it takes on average 66 days to form a new habit. Increasing your physical activity through small changes to your lifestyle is as simple as developing a new habit. In a few months, you could be achieving your 150 minutes a week by creating simple habits throughout your day.

Here are some ideas about how.

10 Small Ways to Increase Physical Activity

1. The Microworkout

Pick an exercise/exercises to attach to something consistent in your day. For example, do a push-up every time you get an email. Do a squat every time you take a sip of water. Do a few jumping jacks every time you leave the bathroom. Pick something that occurs multiple times during your day. A push-up here and there might not seem like a lot, but if you get 40 emails a week, those numbers will add up quickly.

2. Two Minute Walks

Every hour of your workday, spend two minutes walking around. Walk around your place of work, home, or outside for exactly two minutes each hour and you will have walked for 16 minutes total by the end of an eight-hour workday and 80 minutes by end of day Friday. Have an hour-long meeting? Take two minutes to walk around before returning to your desk. Been staring at your screen for the last 58 minutes? Give your eyes a break and take a two-minute walk. I don’t care how busy you are, you can spare two minutes an hour.

3. Toothbrush Wall Sits

The American Dental Association recommends you brush your teeth for two minutes, twice daily. Take this suggestion from mobilitymaker.com and do a wall sit (your back against the wall, your legs bent in a squat position) while you brush your teeth. If you can’t do the wall sit for the full two minutes, stand up straight and let the burn wear off for a second then get back in the seated position.

4. Commercial Break Workouts

Love watching T.V.? Me too. Use the commercial breaks to your advantage. Pick an exercise and do that every time the commercials come on. You don’t need to spend the entire time exercising. You only need to do a pre-determined amount of exercise each break. Most shows have three breaks per thirty minutes. If you do five bodyweight squats every break (not every commercial), that’s 15 squats per show. If you watch 15 30 minute episodes a week and let’s be honest that is probably a conservative estimate, that is 225 squats a week, 900 squats a month, and 10,800 squats a year. Those numbers may seem astronomical compared to your current number of squats a week (let’s assume it is zero), but it is possible when small habits accumulate.

5. Cooking Exercises

Waiting for water to boil? Do some jumping jacks. Waiting for the oven to heat up or the microwave to ding to let you know your dinner is ready? Do some jumping jacks.

6. Dish Fitness

Doing the dishes? For every dish you handwash/put in the dishwasher do a squat.

7. Clean Your House

Running a vacuum through the house a few times a week will not only keep your place clean but will help you get in some more movement.

8. Do Your Own Yardwork

Yardwork can provide an endless supply of calorie-burning physical activity. Mowing the lawn, pulling weeds, trimming the hedges, picking up leaves in the fall, shoveling snow in the winter, planting a garden, etc., will all provide useful physical activity.

9. Walk and Scroll

Do you find yourself constantly scrolling on your phone? Every time you click a certain app, stand up and walk around while you scroll through it. Want to look at Instagram? Then you have to be walking while you do it. Want to see what’s new on Facebook? Stand up and do a lap around the living room.

10. Shop Until You Drop

Every time you go to the store do a full lap around the store before you begin your shopping. Make it a rule that nothing goes in your cart until you’ve completed a full perimeter lap.

Some of these ideas may seem silly at first, but when you do the math to see how much physical activity you can achieve over time, well it doesn’t seem that silly at all. Everything mentioned above is simple and could easily be formed into a lasting habit.

Physical activity is essential for our health and longevity. And who doesn’t want to be healthier and live longer?

Sources

Church TS, Thomas DM, Tudor-Locke C, Katzmarzyk PT, Earnest CP, Rodarte RQ, et al. (2011) Trends over 5 Decades in U.S. Occupation-Related Physical Activity and Their Associations with Obesity. PLoS ONE 6(5): e19657.

Vandelanotte C, Sugiyama T, Gardiner P, Owen N. Associations of leisure-time internet and computer use with overweight and obesity, physical activity and sedentary behaviors: cross-sectional study. J Med Internet Res. (2009) 11:e28. doi: 10.2196/jmir.1084

World Health Organization: Physical Activity Page

Committee PAGA. Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee Scientific Report. U.S.D.o.H.a.Services H, editor. Washington, DC (2018).