Physical Inactivity Kills, but Who Cares?

Regular exercise can extend life, but 90% of humanity would rather die than submit to a daily workout. Is there a technology that can change this attitude?

Last week, an international conference in Brazil heard from scientist Professor Frank Booth, who gave a talk about how the lack of physical activity can be shown to significantly reduce lifespan. The current USA guidelines for physical activity are 30 minutes a day for somebody over 20 years old, but he reported that over 90% of people do not do this amount and are shortening their life as a result.

Professor Booth also indicated that it was a complex motivational journey that leads to this situation and, while attributing some blame to people’s laziness, acknowledged there was a mixture of cultural circumstances that bring about this situation. It’s not clear that very much is different in the UK, even as the Olympic Games approach. Professor Mike Weed has revealed how expectations to radically change physical activity back at bid stage were unrealistic and the British government retracted its lofty expectations that hosting the Games would make the nation’s people healthier.

However, Professor Booth’s talk led me to conclude that a more radical approach is needed. If hosting an Olympics isn’t enough to inspire people to start exercising much more, then would certainty of how it leads to the shortening of one’s life be enough motivation? But, how to effect dramatic behavioural change? Perhaps technology can help. Could we imagine an ideal technological device that could dramatically change people’s inclination to exercise to extend their lives.

What if people were given a wristwatch that showed them accurately when they were going to die, based on, let’s say, a snapshot whole-genome sequencing, accompanied by knowledge about their lifestyle.  It need not be completely accurate, just as good an estimate as present-day science can provide and sufficient to engender trust in the device.

Then, as we went from one day to the next, we could glance at the watch and see whether our longevity potential had improved or worsened as a result. If we had such devices, would this lead to our making healthier lifestyle choices? If, with each puff of a cigarette, we could see exactly how much time we were losing, would this be enough of a motivation to change behavior? What if the wristwatch was for our children and we could see how our decisions as parents affected their lifespan?

Those who saw the recent Andrew Niccol film ‘In Time’ may see this as far from being an ideal technological device and Niccol has form in this area with his cult classic ‘GATTACA’ still a reference point for futurologists. Perhaps if we could ensure that our information was kept private, it could work and be less divisive.

Yet, in a world where thousands of people use biomonitoring devices in their mobile phones to track how many steps they’ve walked each day, or how far they have run, or even use apparatus like Nintendo’s Wii to motivate themselves to exercise, surveillance seems a likely part of this transaction. It may even help.