It may seem unthinkable today, but it took until the 1950s to make the connection between exercise and good health.
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It has been 60 years since British scientist Jerry Morris did a study which found that on London's double-decker buses, drivers had nearly twice the rate of heart disease as the conductors.
The conclusion that the exercise of climbing the stairs of the bus all day had positive health effects for the conductors was at the time "completely revolutionary", said Professor Adrian Bauman from the University of Sydney's School of Public Health.
"Before that people thought exercise was good for them, but there was no clear evidence. There were reasons people gave for being active, but it wasn't health in the sense of preventing disease." This was the first study to see that the lack of physical activity was a health issue, he said. ''It started the whole thinking of physical inactivity as a risk factor for heart disease, diabetes, mental health; all the things we now know inactivity leads to.''
Professor Bauman gave the inaugural Jerry Morris Oration at a Heart Foundation breakfast at Parliament House on Friday. He called for a unified approach to combating the growing problem of inactivity, which people continue to ignore. "Physical inactivity causes as many deaths as does smoking,'' he said. ''Globally it causes 50 per cent more deaths than obesity, yet we don't fund physical inactivity strategies as much as we fund obesity prevention and tobacco prevention, so we need to get on the case," Professor Bauman said.
But tackling the problem takes more than just a health strategy, he said.
"It's working with transport, with urban planning, with schools, with education, with sport and all of those sectors and agencies need to work in a combined way to actually make physical activity happen," Professor Bauman said.
"It's not going to be easy to get people to change the way they think about physical activity. When they approach the lift they just see a lift; they don't see the stairs next door," he said. "We've got to change the way people see incidental activity."
Professor Bauman said it is a challenging task, especially with the increase of screen-based devices, and one which needs more people working seriously towards it. ''We have to make everyday physical activitity normal … [to get] the next generation off the couch and doing things differently''.