30 minutes to fitness!

Exercising for 30 minutes on a daily basis boosts energy and encourages people to maintain a healthy lifestyle, says a recent study.

Interdisciplinary research at the University of Copenhagen explains why moderate exercising is more motivating than hard training. The findings have been published in Scandinavian Journal of Public Health.

The obesity epidemic has massive socio-economic consequences, and decades of health campaigns have not made significant headway, reports Science Daily.

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen are pursuing the development of new integrative methods for preventing and treating this widespread problem.

"Obesity is a complex social problem requiring a multidisciplinary approach. In a new scientific article we combine data from biomedical studies of the subjects' bodies with ethnological data on their experiences during the 13-week trial period.

"This enables us to explain the background for the surprising fact that 30 minutes of daily exercise is just as beneficial as a full hour of hard fitness training," says Professor Bente Stallknecht from the Department of Biomedical Sciences at University of Copenhagen.

"The 'lightweight' group of exercisers appears to get more energy and be more motivated in relation to pursuing a healthy lifestyle."