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How fast or slow you walk could be one of the strongest indicators of health risk. So, if you’re looking to improve your health, then pick up your walking pace.
Physical fitness is automatically associated with health. But the link between these factors may not be as strong as you think. In fact, there is another factor that may more accurately indicate health risk. A recent study has found that walking pace is a more reliable indicator of longevity. And this connection holds regardless of weight or obesity status. So, if you’re really looking to improve your health, it might be time to walk faster.
There’s a lot of evidence that shows the link between walking pace and specific diseases. Studies show that people who walk slowly have a greater risk of heart disease than fast walkers. This connection holds regardless of gender and other risk factors. In fact, walking pace may be the best way to measure cardiovascular fitness and overall health. This highlights the importance of this factor.
At this stage, no link has been found between cancer and walking pace. But this doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Until this issue has been studied more closely, walking is still a good way to monitor for body changes. These types of changes can indicate a serious health risk like cancer. And you can use walking pace to help you identify them early to improve the chances of a good outcome.
A new study has found that walking pace is a strong indicator of longevity. The study examined the health statistics of 474,919 people across the UK. The researchers found that the health risk with the strongest connection to longevity was walking pace. This connection held across all levels of weight status, from morbidly obese to underweight. So, obese people who walked fast lived longer than normally weighted people who walked slow. In fact, the participants with the lowest life expectancy were underweight individuals with a slow walking pace. These results held across other risk factors including BMI and waist circumference measurements.
These results are astonishing. They indicate that BMI or bodyweight may not be as important to health as previously thought. Instead, it seems that physical fitness may be the most important factor. This doesn’t mean that you should ignore your weight of course. But it strongly suggests the importance of regular exercise in reducing health risk and staying healthy.
Unlike a lot of health advice, this is a fairly simple idea to implement. By improving your physical fitness, you will lower your health risk. And you may even find that you’ll drop weight through the simple act of being more active. This will lower your health risk overall and make you look and feel healthier
What’s a little harder to measure is the specific walking pace you should adopt. This is a highly individual factor that’s dependent on the length of your legs and other physical factors. This also makes it a little hard to consider or assess during your health assessment activities. One way to overcome this is to improve your pace. Time yourself over a specific distance and work on lowering your time. This will be a strong sign of increasing physical fitness and decreasing health risk. And it’s also an individual approach that’s based on your current physical fitness and limitations.
So, if you want to be healthier, make sure you consider your walking pace during your next health assessment. It just may be the health risk factor that dictates the length of your life.
If you’re concerned about a health risk, try using HomeLab to keep track of your condition and any preventative measures you take. And if you see signs of a significant problem, you should check with your doctor as soon as possible.
Tags: Health risk, walking, BMI
