NHS told to scrap weekly exercise target for overweight Brits as it is ‘too daunting’
Current guidelines of 150 minutes of exercise a week seen as too taxing as it demotivates the obese
NHS guidelines for weekly exercise targets should be scrapped because overweight people find them “too daunting”, experts say.
The guidelines recommend a minimum of 150 minutes moderate activity such as fast walking or cycling a week and weight training on two days.
But Leeds Beckett University boffins say “one-size-fits-all” targets demotivate the most inactive and unfit as they seem unachievable.
They say we need guidelines that simply urge people to exercise more.
Prof Jim McKenna said: “Current guidelines are too daunting for some people especially the very inactive.
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They think, ‘If I can’t do 150 minutes, there’s no point bothering at all’.
“In fact, there are benefits doing any exercise. We need to get the message across.
“We can’t all be racing along at top speed.”
The Department of Health said: “The guidelines are based on the best evidence from experts.”
1.7million kids too hefty
ALMOST 1.7million kids have started secondary school overweight or obese in the past decade.
A third are an unhealthy weight and numbers with extreme obesity are rising.
Cancer Research UK, which collected the data, said it “foretells a future of ill-health which could cost the NHS billions”.
Obesity Health Alliance warns of an England “weight gap” with 60 per cent of poorest boys aged 5-11 fat compared with 16 per cent of the richest.
Diabetes drug rise
THE number of prescriptions for type-2 diabetes drugs has risen by a third in five years.
Doctors medicated 35million people for it in 2015 — up from 26million in 2011, NHS data shows.
It is often a symptom of an unhealthy lifestyle or being overweight.
London and Lincolnshire had the highest prescription rates.
Diabetes UK said people in those areas’ “very large” black and ethnic minority populations were two to four times more likely to develop the disease.
