Urban populations need more ‘targeted exercise interventions’

UK governments, both national and local – as well as the NHS – should consider “further targeted interventions” to get people living in the country’s cities more physically active.

The 2024 Health Cities report – an annual paper from Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty – shows that city populations are more transient and that health systems need to be flexible to better support people.

It identifies lack of green spaces, limited opportunities to exercise and limited healthy food choices as some of the persistent issues driving health inequalities in the UK’s areas of deprivation.

In his report, Whitty states that UK cities provide both difficulties and opportunities for citizens to build exercise and physical activity into their daily lives.

“Cities should be ideal places for enabling active travel with shorter distances to the things we need or want on a regular basis, including supermarkets, places of leisure, work or healthcare,” he says.

“Making walking and cycling more practical and safer and access to green space easier and more equitable, would go a long way toward removing barriers to improving physical activity levels and could significantly improve the health of England’s increasingly urban population. Green space and sporting facilities are at a premium, but transport to them is usually good in comparison to rural areas. Areas of deprivation are often poorly served both for active transport and for sporting facilities.”

In his recommendations, Whitty says that more should be done to use exercise as a preventative health care solution, alongside programmes to improve diets and to get people to smoke and drink less.

“High smoking rates, obesity prevalence, air pollution, excess alcohol and lack of access to physical activity are more common in areas of high deprivation,” he writes.