I just got an e-mail at work from some new wellness (what a stupid word by the way) committee about some new walking program they are organizing. In the message they include a couple of facts:

• According to a Harvard University Study, you will gain about two hours of life expectancy for each hour of regular exercise, even if you don’t start until middle age.

• Brisk walking for as little as 30 minutes a day can bring heart-health benefits and reduce your risk for stroke by lowering bad cholesterol (LDL) levels and high blood pressure

If you add up the numbers you will find that in order to gain 1 year of life expectancy (8760 hours), if you exercise for 1 hour a day it would take 12 years (4380 days) to gain that 1 year. Now don’t get me wrong I am a proponent of regular exercise. It feels good, and will generally make you healthier. But people should really be more careful when they either read or use such statistics. If you go with the 30 minutes a day it will 24 years to gain that 1 year of life expectancy.