Benefits of Physical Activity: Learning them makes you more likely to exercise

What you are about to read can motivate you to exercise.

Regular physical activity adds about seven years to your life; significantly reduces the risk of diseases such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and breast and colon cancer; Helps manage blood pressure, cholesterol and weight keep your brain sharp, whether you are young or old; strengthens bones and muscles and reduces the risk of developing mental health problems such as depression and relieves symptoms if they do.

Try to remember this because it could help you move: an Australian study showed that people familiar with the specific benefits of physical activity might be more likely to do so.

"Most people know that physical activity is good for health. Few people know the specific benefits of physical activity for health, and it's perhaps this specific knowledge that positively influence their behavior in terms of physical activity, "said study leader Dr. Stephanie Schoeppe, a member of Central Queensland University, in a statement.

Schoeppe and his team created an online survey to survey 615 Australian adults about physical activity – how well they knew and how much they knew about it.

Almost everyone has understood that physical activity is good for general health.

But beyond this level of basic knowledge, few have been able to identify the benefits of physical activity and the risks of physical inactivity.

On average, participants were able to correctly identify only 13 of the 22 illnesses associated with physical inactivity.

As researchers had predicted, those who knew more about specific conditions related to physical inactivity reported significantly higher activity levels than those who knew less.

More than half did not know how much exercise they were supposed to do each week. (FYU, government guidelines dictate at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity and two sessions of muscle building activities.) However, this knowledge did not seem to be related to the level of physical exercise practiced by a nobody.

The study has limitations – respondents to the survey were predominantly women (the findings may not be generalized to men) and reported their physical activity (so the data might be inaccurate).

Nor can the study state with certainty that learning the benefits of physical exercise will actually motivate someone to do more, although researchers have nevertheless concluded that research is a "useful insight" behaviors related to physical activity.

The study is published in the journal PLOS ONE.

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