Dog Walking Your Way to 10,000 Steps

Faye Prior | 2014-07-17 06:01:30

I’m coming to you with yet another blog post about dogs. I’m not paid by anyone to endorse dogs so heavily, it’s just of my own free will to let you know how brilliant they are in general, and for your health too.

This is an obvious one, and I’ve said it before, but people who have a dog are likely to walk more than people who don’t, for obvious reasons! But what I haven’t highlighted before is that this is true of the elderly people amongst us (+65 years), who typically tend to walk less and less with time.

For the elderly people in Scotland anyway, having a dog equates to around 12% more walking, or up to around 19,064 extra steps per week!

The people who conducted the study up in Scotland concluded that if we want the elderly to be more active, then we should try to replicate elements of the dog ownership experience.

I for one am confused by this statement. The only way to replicate having a dog is to have a dog. Why wouldn’t you want one?!

Faye Prior (Researcher)

Source

Feng et al., (2014). Dog ownership and physical activity in later life: a cross-sectional observational study. Preventive Medicine, doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2014.06.004.