Regular exercise significantly improves overall health by boosting the cardiovascular system and strengthening muscles. [Courtesy]
Let’s be honest for a moment: do you really love exercise? Chances are you don’t. It is not hard to see why. Yours truly is not yet sold on exercise’s ROI (return on investment). At my relatively young age, the chest burns, the leg muscles churn like the innards of a posho mill engine, and if you are not careful, your head loses sense of everything, including the meaning of life itself.
But scientists insist that exercise is good for you. In fact, they say it prolongs life and helps keep conditions, such as high blood pressure, at bay. The evidence supporting these claims is abundant in academic literature, making the matter largely beyond debate.
The 2022 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS) found that heart disease, diabetes, cancer and other non-communicable diseases account for 39 per cent of all deaths in Kenya.
Our response to this science has been to embrace exercise with gusto. An entire fitness industry has emerged as a result. In Nairobi and its satellite towns, gyms are big business. Scores of men and women, largely drawn from the middle class, sweat it out in carpeted fitness centres, often to the soundtrack of pulsating techno music.
