Healthy living - Walk it off

THERE is no shortage of advice about how we should live our lives. Experts tell us how to develop and sustain relationships. Others tell us, for a fee of course, how to lose weight.

They, rightly, warn of the dire consequences, physical and psychological, of obesity. However, a lot of this advice goes unheeded.

Poor exercise habits combined with inappropriate diets cost our health services €1.8 billion each year.

Yesterday a Nutrition and Health Foundation (NHF) conference heard that it was easy to call on the government to intervene, but it was up to people to eat and exercise sensibly.

Research shows 59% of Irish adults and 75% of nine-year-old children do not exercise enough. What a pity, as the economic and human costs associated with this failure are entirely avoidable.