Walking to Work Lowers Your Diabetes Risk

Looking for a personal strategy, or a lifestyle change you can make today?

A British study led by researchers at Imperial College London and published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that people who walk to work have around 40% lower odds of having diabetes than those who drive, based on survey data from 20,000 workers across the UK (Laverty et al., 2013).

Diabetes is a major risk factor in Australia’s biggest killer: cardiovascular disease.

Interestingly, this study showed benefits to all modes of “active travel”, including taking public transportation.

Laverty et al., Active Travel to Work and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in the United Kingdom, American Journal of Preventive Medicine (2013)

Even the smallest difference to your daily routine can have long-term benefits to your health. Similarly, it’s easy to lose track of just how many hours we spend sitting.

Any exercise is better than no exercise, and generally speaking, the more the better. In a time-poor world, how could we add more movement and activity into our everyday tasks and lives?

Employers can help employees get into the habit of doing more exercise by implementing employee exercise programs. Ideally such exercise programs would be ongoing, but even shorter programs can still be of benefit because doing some exercise in the workplace may be exactly what an employee needs in order to start a habit of exercise away from the workplace.

• healthy eating
• workplace wellbeing