Would you rather walk to the nearest supermarket or take an auto? Well, many Indians prefer to take an auto or a cab even for short distances. We are amongst one of the laziest countries, a survey says. Out of 46 countries, India ranked 39. The average amount of steps people took in a day came up to 4,297 steps.
The survey was undertaken by Stanford University and it is based on Smartphone data collected of about 700,000 people in 46 countries. The monitered the step counters and walking activity showed that average Indian women walk even less than men at 3,684 steps.
Pragya Bhatt, Yoga Entrepreneur and Creator of 'The Yoga Practice' from Bangalore seems to disagree. She says, “I don’t know if I can believe in the survey, as it is, it's difficult to come to a consensus about such things for countries which have more than a billion people” She adds, “I personally feel that we are very hard-working people. This can be seen by the amount of progress we have made in all fields - IT, health or Bollywood. All this progress cannot be attained by the laziest people in the world.”
Raashi Malhotra, a brand evangelist with Nike and fitness-freak talks about how the survey might not be inclusive of all the socioeconomic levels of India. She says, “Lazy is an attitude we have, as Indians, the first thing we say is Chalta Hai or Ho Jaayega (Anything goes or It’ll be done). It is not even about fitness, laziness is something ingrained in us” She adds, “Nowadays, parents pamper their kids and not teach them how to get up and move and do things on their own. It is how our culture is today. We need to get up and start doing things and basically be alert and excited and MOVE.”
While it is true that Indians do not pay much attention to their fitness regimes, a lot of people are now advocating adding exercise to the daily routines. Children in India are more focussed on their academics rather than spending time outside playing or moving around. This culture is slowly changing, but it also needs a lot of work.
People need to realise that all kinds of diseases can be stopped if only exercise is something that they add to their daily lives.
Of course, it is also true that the sample size of this survey is very small compared to the population that we have in our country. Most of our rural population does walk, and a lot. They don't have cars and cabs to take them around. This brings disparity in the study. As Pragya said, it is difficult to come to a conclusion with the kind of data that the survey used. It only captures the lives of a percentage of the Indian population and doesn't speak for the rest of India.
The countries in the survey that were amongst the least lazy were Hong Kong, China, Ukraine and Japan, with people walking more than an average of 6,000 steps in a day.
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Pic credits: Work It Daily
Also read: Running And Fitness: 10 Tips To Make A Start
Read more stories by Nikhita Sanotra
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