Teach elderly pilates, urges Green Goddess

OLDER people should be given a course of pilates lessons as a birthday gift rather than slippers or chocolates, according to Diana Moran, the “Green Goddess” exercise guru.

Moran, 78, said people in their sixties and seventies can have greater fitness than millennials because they did not

‘They had to walk to school, were made to do sport. Our bone bank is stronger’

spend their childhoods playing video games. However, it was essential that they continue to exercise in old age, she told an audience at the Oxford Literary Festival.

Moran, who got her nickname for appearing on BBC breakfast television in a green leotard, said: “I see people in gym classes, in their sixties and seventies, who are much fitter than those in their thirties and forties.

“We had to walk to school, were made to do sport and PE, and, because of that, our bone bank is stronger. When I ask for presents I ask for pilates lessons, things to help my hobbies and stimulate my brain, not slippers and chocolates.”

Moran has co-written a book, Sod Sitting, Get Moving! with Prof Sir Muir Gray, clinical adviser to Public Health England. “We have this thing where, if our elderly mum is getting on and she can’t get to the shops any more, that we go and help her. This is completely wrong. We need more activity with every year that passes,” he said.

“I don’t find gyms very welcoming for older gentlemen and ladies. They’re full of young pups wearing very little clothes and lifting heavy weights around.

“But things are slowly changing, there are some great classes out there, and socialising while exercising is very important,” he said.

Prof Gray warned that the younger generations are setting themselves up for an unhealthy old age, particularly for the growing number of people who work from home. “They often slide out of bed, into the office, via the kitchen and that’s it,” he said.

For those who commute to a desk job, things are not much better, with the combination of inactivity and stress providing the basis for joint and brain problems.