£100m bill a year for our couch potato lifestyle
A LACK of exercise among people in Yorkshire costs nearly £100m a year, campaigners claim today.
Research by the British Heart Foundation says the total healthcare cost of long-term conditions linked to inactivity in the UK is £900m annually, with nearly £550m spent on the costs of coronary heart disease.
The charity says Britons are three times more likely to do no moderate physical activity than people living in the Netherlands and almost twice as likely as those in Finland and Denmark.
It finds 44 per cent of UK adults do no moderate daily activity, compared to 14 per cent in the Netherlands, as it calls on people to build exercise into their daily routines.
In Yorkshire, heart disease cost nearly £49m a year, and lack of exercise as a whole costs £93m.
Catherine Kelly, director of prevention, survival and support at the charity, said it was “staggering” how much inactivity was costing health services.
Even small changes to people’s daily routines could improve heart health.
“Today’s figures are a worrying indication of the overall picture of our nation’s heart health,” she said.
“Encouraging people to be more active and less sedentary will help reduce their risk of heart disease and will save millions of pounds for health services.
“Alongside funding research into improving outcomes for heart patients, we need to create environments that make it easier for people to better understand and cut their risk of heart disease.
“If we are to ease the burden of this country’s eye-watering physical inactivity costs then people need to take action to improve their health.”
Research by the charity has already revealed how doing any form of activity at least once a week lowers the risk of coronary heart disease.
National guidelines recommend adults should get at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week – enough to raise their heart rate and make them breathe faster and feel warmer.
Figures show around 2.3 million people in the UK have coronary heart disease.