“Closest thing to a wonder drug? Try exercise”[1]
Not so long ago, we walked to work, were physically active during the working day, and then walked home again. Our community was defined by the people we could reach, realistically, by foot. We walked to the local pub, the local sports club, the local school and the local church.
A ‘Healthy Person’, argued the Health Foundation’s seminal paper, ‘Healthy Lives for People in the UK’, “should not be someone free from disease. The greatest influences on our wellbeing and health are factors such as education and employment, housing, and the extent to which community facilitates healthy habits and social connection”.
The report raised a fundamental issue around the approach to health in this country. Too many of us worry about disease once we have it, rather than investing in a lifestyle to help prevent it. That lifestyle used to be set in stone. It was the only way to meet people, buy things or get out of the house. The advent of the car and the computer changed all that. Suddenly, places were built around highways and parking spaces and our day-to-day lives ceased to rely on our own footsteps.
It’s not that we are unaware of the benefits of healthy living. The NHS advises 19–64-year-olds “to do at least 150 minutes of moderate activity a week or 75 minutes of vigorous activity a week”. Older adults should “be physically active every day, even if it’s just light activity”. It’s just that we used to do it without thinking.
Harvard Medical School explains how, “if you’re physically active, your heart gets trained to beat slower and stronger, so it needs less oxygen to function well; your arteries get springier, so they push your blood along better; and your levels of good HDL cholesterol go up”.
We tend to get this. But in the modern world, it involves a conscious choice. As a result, there is a huge gulf in the proportion of us who would ‘like’ to be physically fit and those who manage it. This ‘intention-behaviour gap’ is 47.6% (meaning that almost half of us do less physical exercise than we intend to).[2] So, if you’re struggling with exercise, you’re not alone.
The reasons are not complicated. For many of us, although we know that exercise makes us happier and healthier, the process of getting started is often less than enticing. It requires time and effort. It can feel terribly uncomfortable at first. It may require a gym membership. It may even bring on a real sense of anxiety.
Which brings us back to the Health Foundation’s premise. For many of us, a different approach is required.[3] Rather than struggling to find the time, energy and equipment to consciously ‘get fit’, we need physical activity to be integrated into our work, social lives and daily routines. We need the opportunity to make easy healthy living choices. By substituting the car for a bike; the bus for a stroll; the lift for the stairs; the television for the allotment. Ultimately, we would benefit from these regular habits being made more accessible and convenient.
The World Health Organization’s paper ‘A Healthy City is an Active City’[4] suggests we should all set a goal of accumulating at least 30 minutes of activity each day, be that through walking or bicycling for transport, performing fitness exercises, participating in sports, playing in the park, working in the garden, taking the stairs and using recreational facilities.
But that’s easier said than done. None of those things are straightforward if you live in an estate with no green space. Or by roads heavy with traffic and light on pavement. Or in an area where sports facilities are in short supply and dominated by organised teams.
In a free society, government may benefit from people living healthier lifestyles, but that choice is left to the individual. So an individual’s health is shaped by their day-to-day experiences within their local community.
Which is why so much responsibility for healthy living falls not with the NHS, but with developers. We can make it easy for people to walk to the shops, cycle to a friend’s house, play cricket in the park, join a welcoming, community-run yoga group, or take the dog for a walk safely and conveniently alongside other like-minded people. We can facilitate healthy lifestyle choices by building the playgrounds, allotments, green spaces, cycle paths and walkways that can make cars redundant for many local journeys. We can invest in sports pitches and sponsor youth involvement in outdoor games. We can focus on supporting those demographic groups who are statistically less likely to engage.
A great place can do more than bring people together. It can create an environment that lends itself to outdoor gatherings, activities and sport, stretching the benefits of being part of the local community.
The danger of the current rush to build houses is that they are not set in the best context. That they are built solely for the car and the commute. That they prioritise the wrong things.
It is not – and never will be – our role to dictate to people how to live. But we believe it is our responsibility to provide the essentials to allow them to safely and easily meet the physical requirements for leading more traditional, healthy lifestyles. These also create more connected communities as we are all more likely to start a conversation on a walk or by the side of a kids’ football match.
That’s something that sits at the heart of our designs and our team. We would always prefer a colleague arrived a little later in the office having walked to work. Or that they take time out to exercise during the day. We have invested in desks that can easily be adapted to allow us all to work standing-up. To risk a well-worn cliché, the best way to embark on healthy living is to enable everyone involved to ‘walk-the-walk’.
We’ve designated 2025 our year of Healthy Places. We will highlight the importance of developing places that make it easier to do the things that our great grandparents took for granted. You can find updates in our ‘place’ journals and across social media.
[1] This New York Times headline (to an article by A.E.Carroll) was published in 2016.
[2] The intention-behaviour gap in physical activity: a systematic review and meta-analysis of the action control framework | British Journal of Sports Medicine
[3] National Institute on Aging Go4Life Program (NIA, 2018)
[4] https://www.icsspe.org/system/files/WHO%20-%20A%20healthy%20city%20is%20an%20active%20city.pdf