Catherine Conlon: Almost half of women don't prioritise exercise and it's time to change
Physically For Struggle Mental Being Women Benefits Too To Has For Make But Health Time Our Active Often Themselves
Nearly half of all Irish women over the age of 40 do not prioritise exercise.
Research from Sport Ireland highlights that 41% feel they don’t have time and almost two thirds say they are too tired.
After a long day at work, picking up children, and sorting dinner, afterschool activities, homework, housework, and bills, it can be difficult to find the time or incentive to exercise.
Sport Ireland in partnership with Healthy Ireland has launched a campaign ‘It’s my Time’ to encourage women to prioritise their wellbeing by becoming more physically active. The campaign includes specially commissioned exercise videos for muscle, bone, and cardiovascular health as well as sleep, mental health, and nutrition.
The particular barriers to physical activity were noted by chief nursing officer with the Department of Health, Rachel Mckenna, who said: "We know that women often struggle to make time for themselves, to prioritise their own health, and to be physically active.
"For many women in this age group (40-60), menopause adds further uncertainty; it can be a daunting experience bringing with it a range of symptoms that can be challenging, including difficulty sleeping, headaches, and fatigue."
This campaign aligns with another one that Sport Ireland is investing in to target inactive teenage girls. It is hoped that this campaign will formally launch in March 2023 and run until at least October 11, International Day of the Girl. It will be aimed at inactive teenagers in urban and rural locations, disadvantaged communities, and the LGBTQ+ community.
The 2018 Children’s Sport Participation and Physical Activity (CSPPA) showed that just 7% of teenage girls in secondary school meet the recommended physical activity guidelines of 60 minutes a day.
The 2021 Adolescent Girls Get Active Research report found that girls often label themselves as ‘not sporty’ and state that they feel they are not good enough, unfit, and feel less talented than others.
A recent Global Advisor study revealed that people from the Netherlands spend 12.8 hours a week (almost two hours per day) doing physical exercise or team sports, double the average of 6.1 across 29 countries.
Just 4% of Dutch people report they do no exercise at all in a week.
Over one third of people (37%) across all countries said lack of time was the biggest obstacle to taking exercise. The next biggest barriers are lack of money (18%) and the weather being too hot or too cold (17%).
How can these barriers of lack of time, lack of money, and poor weather be removed?
By doing what the Dutch do — allowing them to lead the field by a margin in terms of the average amount of exercise taken per week.
We need to prioritise active travel in towns and cities across the country and make it easier and cheaper to walk, cycle, and take public transport. By joining up all three, it will make it easy to move actively and efficiently to school or work and all the other activities that we do on a daily basis.
It makes economic sense too. A new report from active travel non-profit Sustrans in Britain found that walking, cycling, and wheeling were worth £36.5bn (€42.6bn) to the UK economy last year.
The index found that people who walk take 27% fewer sick days and spend 40% more in shops than those who drive, largely due to the amount of time spent there.
"It’s clear that active forms of travel, such as walking and cycling, bring in billions of pounds of economic benefit," said Xavier Brice, CEO of Sustrans.
Jonathan Bray, director of the Urban Transport Group, said: "In the face of the dual crises of the cost of living and climate change, we need to ensure that people can make short journeys on foot or by bike wherever possible."
Research from the University of Glasgow published in this month, reported that a third of people at risk of depression and anxiety could prevent it by getting enough exercise. Exercise is a well-known treatment for those with depression but moving more could prevent people becoming depressed and anxious in the first place a, a study of almost 40,000 people suggests.
We know this intuitively. I find cycling 4km to and from work wakes me up on the way in and clears my brain on the way home, dispatching with grumpiness or tension at either end of the day. The authors advise at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity such as cycling or brisk walking every week and strength exercises on two days per week that work all the major muscles.
One way of making this happen — rain, hail or shine is by making aerobic exercise part of your day — by doing what the Dutch have shown us how to do it best — prioritising active travel to work or school.
A new report from PATH (Partnership for Active Travel and Health) published this month reports that walking or cycling 30 minutes per working day is enough to reduce risk of premature death by 20-30%, as well as being a cheap transport option for dramatically cutting carbon and pollutant emissions on short trips.
The Cork Metropolitan Area Transport Strategy (CMATS) has set out an ambitious vision to deliver an accessible integrated transport network that enables the sustainable growth of the Cork Metropolitan area.
The plan includes a transformed bus system, an enhanced commuter rail system, a new east-west light rail line, a comprehensive cycling network providing safe cycling facilities across the region, road improvements plus park and ride provision and enhanced pedestrianisation.
Women of all ages are not getting enough exercise because of time and cost pressures, and it is impacting on their physical and mental health, energy levels, and risk of premature death.
The CMATS integrated transport network is urgently needed to aggressively challenge the norms around active travel and remove age, gender, and income group barriers to all of us including older women and adolescent girls to lead healthy active lives.
Imagine the new norm — women of all ages walking and cycling to school and college and work — that’s the goal.