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| Autumn Walk |
There’s no doubt about it, walking is good for you. It’s good for your heart, it’s good for your lungs, it’s good for the muscle and bone growth of your children and it’s good for your feeling of wellbeing! Strong scientific evidence now supports the many benefits to health of regular walking – it is recommended that we take at least 10,000 steps a day.
Studies show that walking can:
- Reduce the risk of coronary heart disease and stroke
- Lower blood pressure
- Reduce high cholesterol and improve blood lipid profile
- Reduce body fat
- Enhance mental well being
- Increase bone density, hence helping to prevent osteoporosis
- Reduce the risk of cancer of the colon
- Reduce the risk of non insulin dependant diabetes
- Help to control body weight
- Help osteoarthritis
- Help flexibility and co-ordination hence reducing the risk of falls
Walking offers a great way to help kids get the active habit. If parents express excitement about the prospect of a walk in the countryside, they are more likely to transmit this feeling to their children. It’s important to treat the walk as an exploration or adventure and to go at the child’s pace, no matter how often they want to stop and look at things; take treats to eat and plenty to drink; and head for some landmark that will appeal to them such as a castle, a playground, an ice cream van or a boating pond. If children experience walking as part of a fun activity they are more likely to want to go again.
So, how do you find out what is on offer? John Harris, a keen walker, got fed up with the lack of information on walks that were going on in the County. So, he decided that if he couldn’t find what he was looking for – he had better create it! So www.walkinginhants.co.uk came into being.
www.walkinginhants.co.uk gives you all the information you need for the best walking in the County:
Guided walks: Local groups who offer guided walks are listed together with links to their web-sites.
Books of walks: There are over 50 books of walks for the County. All the details are there.
Leaflets of walks: Over ninety leaflets are produced around the County, you can download them easily from the site.
Walking groups: Every walking group in the County is listed.
There are also links so that you can check: the weather for your walk, links to other useful sites, how to get to your walk by public transport – and more is being added all the time.
So check out the website and get walking! |
