Fast walkers outlive dawdlers by 15 years

You might want to stop scrolling through your phone and pick up the pace, because fast walkers could live up to 15 years longer than those who dawdle.

In sweet vindication for every quick-footed pacer whose been stuck behind a slow-moving human snail, it turns out you could be pounding those pavements for more than a decade longer.

Researchers at Leicester University analysed data from 2006 and 2016 on almost 500,000 people across the UK with an average age of 52.

Findings indicated that women who regularly walk briskly have an average life expectancy of 86.7 to 87.8 years while fast-walking men can expect to ring in their 86th birthday.

Slow walkers should consider upping their speed however, as dawdling women have a life expectancy of 72.4 while men can expect to live until 64.8-years-old.

To put the new findings into perspective, the average life expectancy in the UK is 79 for men and almost 82 for women.

According to the new study, these statistics even apply to fast walkers who are severely overweight.

“Our findings could help clarify the relative importance of physical fitness compared to body weight on life expectancy of individuals,' Tom Yates, the physical activity professor at Leicester, explained.

Other studies have delivered similar findings on the perils faced by those who stroll, rather than stride.

A 2011 study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), discovered that walking speed is a reliable indicator of life expectancy.

In 2018, findings from a report conducted by the University of Sydney also found that increasing your walking pace could cut your risk of early death by a fifth.

Of course, the latest stats don’t mean that all fast walkers will outlive others, but there is an undeniable correlation between exercise and increased life expectancy.

Looks like we should avoid the following scenario at all costs.

After all, it’s science.

Words by Danielle Fowler

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