If you do already manage to fit in regular gym workouts, or a game of football once a week, you can stop feeling smug now.
Plenty of us are what Blodgett calls “active couch potatoes”.
Of course those activities are “a good thing” she says, but they won’t make up for sitting all day at work staring at a screen or spending the evening slouching on the couch.
“Thirty minutes in the gym is only a tiny part of it”, she points out. “What about the other 23-and-a-half hours?”
If that is you, she advises:
Standing up – get up from your desk regularly
Going for a walk – use half your lunchtime for a leg stretch instead of looking at your phone
Meetings on the go – think West Wing, walk and talk. This works for a lot of phone meetings too
The evidence suggests sitting only for very short periods is best.
“Every 15, 30 minutes, can you stand up, shake around, sit back down?” says Blodgett.
This does not mean you should quit the gym.
There is still a hierarchy, with higher intensity activity, that raises the heart rate, still offering the biggest fitness and health gains, followed by moderate activity such as walking, says Blodgett.