Have you noticed all the labour saving devices there are out there? ‘Drive through’ -restaurants, banks, post offices, dry cleaners, pharmacies? Satellite navigation system to get us to our destination in our automatic cars, also equipped with auto drive and a hands-free, voice activated phone?

We  have a robot to record our television programmes, another to automatically switch on our heating, air conditioning, music, lights, cooker, washing machine, and now we have one to vacuum our floors. How often do you see children playing outside these days? We will get on a bus to go on a 5 minute journey; and sit in our cars waiting for a parking space close to the entrance to a shop or restaurant rather than park further away and walk! 

Our food comes pre-peeled, de-seeded, unshelled, pre-mashed, pre-washed, pre-sliced, pre-diced, par boiled, ready to eat with no cutting and a melt in the mouth quality (it is that soft and tender!). Food is sold with the allure of sex: Easy mastication, and very fork-able!

Only small decreases in activity levels combined with even smaller increases in food intakes will result in noticeable weight gain after only a few years. We need to go back to basics and begin to find ways to work the energy balance in our favour. Think healthy planet- revolving around the sun and, at the same time, turning around on its own axis. If that movement stopped, we would die.

Our body expends a lot of energy keeping us alive (the earth turning on its axis can be equated to our metabolic rate) but we are not doing enough ‘revolving around the sun’. The voluntary movement aspect of our lives has reduced in favour of labour saving activities and appliances. Technological advances are good but we need to use our free time to work our muscles more effectively.

Exercise is an essential part of healthy living. Just as everything in nature is connected via carefully controlled eco systems, our inactivity affects others around us too. Can you think of ways that your inactivity can affect other living things around you?