@hawk4225 - What’s happened is that normally, you ask people how much sport they do, and then look at how sick they get and how early they die and do some calculations. So, like, you can see that people who run marathons every week live longer than people who do nothing at all? And based on these calculations, scientists then come up with how much physical activity you should do in order to get some benefits.
(At the moment, it’s something like 75 minutes of intense activity every week.)
But as it turns out, people either don’t realize how much they actually move, or they deliberately lie about it, because if you give people a wearable device that measures physical activity with some precision, you can see a discrepancy between what the device says and what the person says. For instance: you write down you cycled ‘at high intensity’ for 60 minutes, but in reality you sort of pushed the pedals for 45 minutes.
(Maybe you perceived it as high intensity, maybe you didn’t understand how ‘high intensity’ is defined, maybe you misremember, or maybe you’re trying to be ‘a good student’ and pretend like you’re exercising more than you actually are. It doesn’t really matter, it’s all normal human behaviour.)
With that in mind, these researchers have noticed that a) the man claiming to run weekly marathons actually ran 10 miles at a relaxed pace every once in a while but also b) he was living longer than inactive people anyway. So what this means is that you don’t need to do as much physical activity as previously thought in order to reap the longevity- and health-related benefits. Which is good news! The takeaway here is, any physical activity is better than none, so don’t feel bad if you don’t have time for very long sessions or can’t keep up the intensity for a long time.
