Dog Walking

Dogs are great walking buddies. They are very persistent and can even act as your own personal trainer. If you start walking with your dog, or a friend or family member’s dog, you will find that they are always ready for a walk when you are, always extend the walk as long and as far as possible and rarely talk back. Dogs provide great motivation to get up and go for a walk, multiple times a day!

Cindy Lentino, an exercise scientist at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services in Washington, conducted a study of the health of 916 middle-aged adults under three categories: 1) those who owned dogs and walked them frequently; 2) those who owned dogs and didn’t walk them and; 3) those who did not own dogs.

Lentino discovered benefits of dog walking to include lower risk of high blood pressure, a leaner waistline and less chronic health conditions and concluded that regular dog walkers had a lower BMI and fewer depressive conditions compared to those who didn’t walk with a dog. Lentino states, “The big one is that people who did not own dogs had over three times the odds of being treated for diabetes than those who walked their dogs”!

 

To find out more information about this study visit: http://bit.ly/bb72DS