Even though most Australians know we need to exercise more, many of us don’t!
Our recent study suggests this is often due to diminishing availability of time.
We found that among otherwise healthy people, becoming time poor, rushing or feeling time pressed increases new cases of extreme inactivity – exercising less than 30 minutes a week – one to two years later. This occurred for around 5% of our study population.
Decreasing income exacerbated inactivity due to rising time pressure. In people who became both time and income poor, one in five of them became extremely inactive.
Lack of time also changed what healthy people ate. They increased the number of times they ate out, ate less fresh fruit and vegetables and more foods high in fats, salt or sugar.
Our study participants were 6,000 Australians aged 25-54 whom we followed for three years. We included only people who were healthy – both in terms of their physical and mental health and wellbeing – and people who were not time or income poor in the first year of the study.
We defined “time poor” as when at least 70 hours a week were spent on some or all of the following: working, caring, running a household and commuting. The term “time pressed” referred to the feeling of rushing (often or always) in order to manage.
Barriers to healthy living
Right now 9 million Australians don’t do enough exercise. This inactivity will cost the taxpayer $1.5 billion in health care through lifelong consequences, including increased risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease, as well as depression, anxiety and some cancers. This is a problem that costs everyone.
While public health research and initiatives do seriously consider how lack of knowledgeand lack of income affect people’s health, most are yet to address the complexities of time availability. Instead, lack of time is still viewed as an excuse: a problem of laziness, of poor choices and of low motivation.
Our results suggest that rather than being an excuse, lack of time and other factors create barriers to healthy living.
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