‘Prescribe walks to help with health’
GPs should prescribe walking
MORE GPS should prescribe walking to improve mental wellbeing and long-term physical health conditions, claims a new report published today.
The document released by the walking charity, Living Streets, and entitled Is Walking a Miracle Cure? focuses on the health benefits of taking a stroll and argues that towns and cities designed for the activity will improve wellbeing.
The report makes recommendations under 10 headings, including an increase in “social prescribing”, with an emphasis on walks in parks and green spaces and promoting walking for disabled people or those with longterm health conditions as part of health checks.
Other recommendations include adopting the Department for Education’s voluntary healthy schools rating scheme to increase active travel to and from school as well as assessing all new housing developments to ensure services, leisure and employment opportunities are within walking distance and prioritising low traffic neighbourhoods to increase walking and cycling rates.
Dame Jane Roberts, the chairwoman of Living Streets, said: “We are facing a physical inactivity crisis with obesity levels at a record high and increasing concerns about mental ill-health problems across the nations. And we are in the midst of a climate emergency with air pollution responsible for over 40,000 premature details a year. Walking is the free, easy and accessible solution. Why would we not do more of it?”
The report launches at Living Streets’ National Walking Summit in Manchester today, with guest speakers including World Champion athletes Dame Sarah Storey and Chris Boardman, neuroscientist Professor Shane O’Mara, and the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham.
BARACK OBAMA was speaking in a political context when the former US president ventured: “If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.”
Yet they’re also apropos regarding today’s call by the Living Streets charity for GPs to put their best feet forward and prescribe walking to help improve the physical and mental wellbeing of their patients. After all, it is free.
A step in the right direction on the day of the
National Walking Summit, it’s important to appreciate the recuperative benefits of a walk, even when the weather is bracing, at a time when the country needs to take positive steps to counter obesity and climate change.
However it is not just about the medical profession. It’s also about personal responsibility. If everyone vowed, where possible, to make one more trip by foot rather than car each week, whether it is to the shops or park, those small steps will soon add up.