Majority Of Bhubaneswar Residents Physically Inactive: Study

Bhubaneswar: More than 59 per cent of the residents of the Odisha capital, which has a population of more than one million, are not physically active, with less than one-third walking for 10 minutes or more, a recent study has revealed.

“The physical activity pattern among the city residents has been found to be very poor with 59.2 per cent of the population reporting that they were not active physically and didn’t have any intention of being more active in future,” the first of its kind study in Odisha reported.

The study was conducted by the Community Medicine department of the Institute of Medical Sciences and SUM Hospital— faculty of medical sciences of SOA Deemed to be University, and funded by Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC).

“Around 10 per cent of the people surveyed reported that they suffered from non-communicable diseases (NCD) like diabetes, high blood pressure or cardio vascular disease,” Prof E Venkata Rao, who headed the study, said.

The study found that only 16 per cent of the people were practicing yoga and most of them were inspired by watching it on TV, he added.

The study, he said, was intended to explore how the urban community was placed with regard to physical activity and the government policies concerning the same. It was also unique in the sense that it tried to find out the prevalence of yoga as a physical activity modality.

The other members of the study group included Dr Satyajit Mohanty, Dr Sandeep Kumar Panigrahi and Dr Jyoti Ranjan Sahoo, all from the department of Community Medicine of IMS and SUM Hospital.

The research, Prof Rao pointed out, brought into light three issues. First is the need to formulate a national plan to address physical activity promotion. Second, the doctors need to be trained more on physical activity prescription and third, the most important part was on the individual front. “Every individual must try to accumulate at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise in a week with not more than two successive days of exercise holiday,” he added.