Sedentary city lifestyles

In agricultural societies, people are daily physically active in many different ways; but in urban societies, most middle-class adult men and women are physically underactive. Since there is ample evidence that physical health depends on daily physical activity, this indicates an imbalance in town and city life-styles.

A comparison of the death rates between groups that have been able to have daily physical activity with those that have not shows, for example, that in the age group 60 to 64, one percent of the men in the heavy exercise category died during the follow-up year, whereas in the non-exercise group five times as many died.

1. The shift to sedentary lifestyles is the basis of a major health problem. Although people in industrialized countries tend to consume about 30% fewer calories than in the 1950s, they tend nevertheless to be fatter. Physically demanding jobs have gradually disappeared. Car ownership is growing, so fewer people cycle or walk to work.

1. Unhealthy human environment
2. Unhealthy cities
3. Inappropriate personal habits
4. Inactivity

1. Sedentary children
2. Prolonged sitting
3. Lack of play time for school children

1. Physical unfitness
2. Obesity
3. Haemorrhoids
4. Energy inefficient lifestyles
5. Cardiovascular disorders

1. Sterile working environment
2. Social isolation of computer users
3. Monolithic architecture of high-rise buildings
4. Insufficient common land in urban environments
5. Inhibition of exploration by children of urban environment
6. Inadequate environmental awareness
7. Inaccessibility of water for recreation
8. Inaccessibility of urban parks
9. Alienating waiting environments

1. Insufficient preventive medicine
2. Compensatory lifestyles
3. Calcium deficiency

1. Providing sufficient daily physical activity in urban environments
2. Abstaining from daily physical activity in urban environments

1. Unhealthiness
2. Overactivity
3. Lack
4. Inactivity
5. Action