Band 6+: Health experts say that walking is the best form of exercise; however, people now walk less. What could be the reason for this? What might encourage people to walk longer distances?

Health professionals state that there is no better alternative for exercising than walking. Despite this, people now take fewer walks. What can be blamed for this phenomenon and what may be done to change this.

There are a few reasons for this. First of all, the quality of air is getting worse. This can be attributed to a number of factors: More people are buying cars nowadays, yet the road infrastructure has not been upgraded, so traffic jams may occur. Traffic jams are very bad for the environment in general, because every vehicle is idling, taking up space, using up some fuel which emits greenhouse gases. In addition, more cars on the road may lead to more reckless drivers, who often cause accidents or damage public property.

With those problems in mind, there are a couple of solutions to them. Firstly, more trees and green spaces should be created. These can help alleviate the air quality of densely populated areas while also providing shades and space for recreational activities. Secondly, governments can introduce more taxes on cars that are big, heavy, and inefficient. This may also cut down on air pollutants, while giving more space to other road users. Finally, there should be a more rigorous training and testing system for new drivers, which may reduce cases of dangerous driving.

There are also other factors which might cause people to walk less. The rise of convenient shopping tools, such as online shopping, door-to-door shipping,… Next, balancing work-life can be very difficult, and deadlines might prompt employees to stay indoors. In order to solve those problems, companies should be encouraged to reduce their workforce’s stress, through ways such as adding more breaks between shifts, creating more green or recreational spaces, or feedback boxes to the higher-ups of the organisations.

In short, although walking has been proven to be very effective in improving our health, we take fewer walks than before. So the solutions mentioned above should be applied to real life in order to improve our distance of walking.