Get off the couch, before it’s too late! - Hugh Bethell

Get off the couch

This book is an exhortation for us all to make regular exercise an essential part of our daily life. The vast majority of our citizens takes too little exercise to promote good health although many believe that they do take enough exercise. As with food we have an exaggerated belief in our healthy behaviour. The result is that the previously steady increase in life expectancy of the past few decades has fallen recently and the period of poor health and dependence at the end of life has increased. The vulnerability of the elderly who have taken too little exercise for their own good has been thrown into stark reality by the Covid pandemic. Most of those who became very unwell or died from covid-19 were overweight, unfit and/or suffered one or more degenerative diseases of old age – all the long-term results of being inactive. One reason for taking too little physical activity for good health may be ignorance of the importance of regular exercise for disease prevention , longevity and most of all a healthy and enjoyable old age. This book describes some important aspects of exercise such as normal responses, measurement of exercise dose, measurement of physical fitness , how much exercise really we take and how much we should take as part of a truly healthy lifestyle. The really essential message of this book is that if we are insufficiently active we put ourselves at risk of a number of degenerative diseases . These in turn increase the risk of premature death and of later life frailty. If you want to make a New Year resolution, look no further than getting off the couch before it is too late!