Green Spaces Do Not Inspire More Exercise

Living near parks and green spaces make little or no difference to how much people exercise during their leisure time, Dutch researchers reported in the journal BioMed Central Public Health, this week.

"We found that there was either no relationship or only a small one between green space and physical activity," said Jolanda Maas, lead researcher at the NIVEL Institute in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

It seems that people who live closest to green places in urban or rural areas walk and cycle LESS often and for SHORTER AMOUNTS OF TIME than other residents. People with 20 percent green space around them walked about 250 minutes each week during their leisure time, compared with 180 minutes, which is more than an hour less, for those surrounded by 80 percent of green space.

This may be because people in rural environments need their cars more to get to shops, schools and the doctor's office, Jolanda Maas said.

Living near green space also made no difference in whether people met national health recommendations to get 30 minutes of exercise daily, according to the survey of 5,000 residents across the Netherlands.

Source: Reuters