A New Survey Has Found That You Spend Less Than One Percent Of Your Life Exercising, And That’s Pretty Bad News

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Hate exercising? Most of us do. While the rush of endorphins that hits after you collapse on a treadmill is nice, it’s often not enough of an incentive to go back to the gym (or the running track, or your bike) for another go. Instead, you might want to veg out with your iPad or make the most of you time here on earth eating that burger monstrosity which has a calorie count higher than the number of steps you’ve ever taken in a single day. But while we’d like to continue living in blissful ignorance about our exercise habits until the new year rolls around again, a new study has made it impossible to sit up (counts as exercise!) and not take notice of how little time we devote to physical fitness.

The study was funded by Reebok and conducted by Censuswide, which looked at how we’re all spending the approximate 25,915 days (an average of 71 years) that many of us will live. And the results are sobering. According to the survey, which studied more than 9,000 people around the globe, we spend less than one percent of our lives devoting time to physical fitness (approximately 180 days), while spending more than 41 percent of it (10,625 days) staring at screens, and 29.7 percent of our lives sitting down. That’s approximately 7,709 days of just sitting, and while it doesn’t sound so bad (although many of us would probably prefer to spend more of that time laying down) it’s definitely something that could contribute to both lower life expectancy as well as a lower quality of life. And if you’re reading this and thinking “I’ll definitely put that on my resolutions list,” you should know that the average human breaks a New Year’s resolution less than three months after setting it.

Here’s an infographic that breaks it all down:

It’s unlikely that any of us are going to take Reebok’s suggestions and run around the world or climb Mount Everest, but the results are a gentle reminder that you might want to buy a new pair of running shoes and at least try to make it outside to take a nice walk every couple of days. After all, the sense of self-satisfaction you’ll get from knowing you did something to make yourself a little healthier might actually spur you to do more. Or it may just give you enough of a lift that you’ll live just a little longer anyway. As long as you don’t reward your hard work with a double bacon cheeseburger.

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