Get Active
Importance of Being Physically Active
Being physically active is an important part of everyone’s daily lifestyle; early years, children and young people, adults, and older people - Everyone needs to stay active throughout their lives to help remain healthier in future.
Being regularly active has a huge range of benefits, which can soon make an improvement to a person’s quality of life. It helps to maintain a healthy heart, control weight, have more energy, sleep better, socialise and make friends, reduce stress and anxiety, and prevent ill health in later life from illnesses such as type II diabetes, CHD, hypertension, and some cancers.
Physical activity is any activity that raises your heart rate, makes you feel warmer, and shortens your breath. It is recommended for adults to complete 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) of moderate physical activity per week, one way to achieve this is by doing 30 minutes of activity on five days of the week. It doesn’t all have to be done at once though; you can build your activity up throughout the day! Children over 5's need to be active for at least 60 minutes everyday.
The recommended physical activity guidelines have recently been updated to include specific guidance for under 5's and over 65's, to find out more about these recommendations please visit NHS Choice's Health and Fitness pages.
Get Active - For a Healthier Happier Dartford
Get
Active is a project which aims to help make achieving your everyday
dose of physical activity as easy and fun as possible through a variety
of activities. There is an activity
to suit you whatever your age or ability. The activities included in Get Active are provided by a number of partners across the borough.
You can find out about all the different activities by visiting the pages below:
- Get Active in your Community
- Get Active Outside
- Get Active for Health
- Get Active: Local Leisure Providers
You can also download a Get Active Booklet for 2012 (pdf, 450kB).
Get Active supports Change4Life. In order to maintain a healthy weight we need to eat better, and move more to help us live healthier and longer lives. Visit the Change4Life website or call 0300 123 4567 for more information.
