Researchers are convinced: to be healthy, Quebecers should walk more. However, the Quebec government shows very little ambition for this gentle mode of travel. Quebec is ripe for a revolution through its feet, say experts joined by The Press, who see it as a way to prevent a range of diseases linked to a sedentary lifestyle. But how to get there?
“You don’t have to be an athlete to benefit. Just walk. No need to do a marathon or an Ironman, especially if you consider yourself too old or not fit enough to run. Go for a walk. It will be good for your body and your brain. »
The man speaking on the line is Arthur Kramer, director of the Center for Cognitive and Brain Health at Northeastern University in Boston. He knows what he is talking about. He has devoted his career to these issues.
In 2011, Professor Kramer and his colleagues wanted to know if physical activity could influence the hippocampus, a brain region associated with spatial memory.1.
The researchers therefore took two groups of 60 adults. The first did stretching sessions and the second walked three times a week for 40 minutes. After a year, the volume of the hippocampus of the members of the first group had reduced. That of the walking group had increased by around 2%.
This is just one of many studies that point to one simple thing: walking is good for the body and the brain.
Ultimately, in all these studies, we show that walking, and especially sustained walking, can improve cardiorespiratory health, but also memory, reasoning, problem solving, and attention.
Arthur Kramer, director of the Center for Cognitive and Brain Health at Northeastern University
The man, now aged 70, walks morning and evening to go to work, more than 6 km round trip. “I invest in my old age, but above all in the quality of my old age. »
Leave the risk zone
Researchers are unanimous: walking is good for us. It is almost accessible to everyone. It does not require months of training, complicated equipment and causes very few injuries.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
A method of travel and exercise accessible to the vast majority of the population, walking is beneficial for both the body and the brain.
Some believe it could save the health system millions of dollars if it were more widespread as a prevention tool. However, the march is stagnating in Quebec, according to the very fragmentary data that exists. The Quebec government does not even have a national portrait of the practice of walking and its objectives to encourage it are anything but ambitious.
“What we don’t do in Quebec is the science of prevention. It’s time to get serious about this,” says Jean-Pierre Després, professor in the kinesiology department at Laval University, in an interview.
Mr. Després recently published The active revolution, a book in the form of a cry from the heart. With the progression of a sedentary lifestyle and the aging of the population, the Dr Després fears a tidal wave of chronic diseases associated with lifestyle: obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, etc.
Cardiorespiratory fitness is, he explains, “the number one determinant of your life trajectory, in health or illness.” And to improve it, you have to move.
15%
A meta-analysis published last August in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology concludes that for each 1000 steps per day, the risks of mortality were reduced by 15% and those of mortality linked to cardiovascular disease by 7%. “The results indicate that only 4,000 steps per day are necessary to significantly reduce mortality risk,” write the authors, who found gains even beyond 10,000 steps per day. Accumulating 1000 steps takes about 10 minutes of walking.
Source : European Journal of Preventive Cardiology
Consult the study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology
According to him, the priority is to reach the most sedentary Quebecers. They are the most at risk, the fifth of the population with the lowest cardiorespiratory capacity.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESS
Jean-Pierre Després, professor in the kinesiology department at Laval University
Science shows us that [les sédentaires] are not twice as likely to have cardiovascular accidents – like if they have high cholesterol or high blood pressure or diabetes – no, they are eight to nine times more likely to have accidents cardiovascular!
Jean-Pierre Després, professor in the kinesiology department at Laval University
To defuse this time bomb, he recommends walking. “Guys will say: walking isn’t a sport! If we have 25% of the population who are sedentary and inactive, walking is the ideal solution. It’s not expensive. Just about anyone can walk. »
“Science tells us that if you walk every day, this low cardiorespiratory condition there, you will gradually improve it. We won’t make Alex Harvey out of you, he said. But we will get you out of the risk zone. »
Quebec navigates in the dark
Despite all its virtues, walking has lost ground in Quebec, as elsewhere in the West. We know that our peasant ancestors walked a lot more; Amish men, who reject technology, walk an average of 18,000 steps a day, more than three times that of the average Canadian.
10,000 steps per day?
Where does the idea that you need to walk 10,000 steps a day to be healthy come from? It was born from an advertising campaign for a Japanese pedometer in 1965. But this figure is not just marketing… Studies tend to demonstrate that the optimal health effect is achieved around 10,000 steps/day. The good news ? Walking “only” between 5000 and 8000 steps/day also allows you to benefit from several positive effects. For reference, walking 10,000 steps is roughly the same as 5 miles. “According to various studies, we take between 4,000 and 6,685 steps per day in our daily activities, so there is a deficit of 3,000 to 6,000 steps per day to achieve the objective of 10,000 steps per day,” specifies the Observatory. of prevention from the Montreal Heart Institute. What we also know is that vigorous walking brings even more benefits.
British data even shows that walking has continued its long decline since the 1990s. The culprits are known: the motorization of transport, urban sprawl, the omnipresence of screens, etc.
What can we do in this context to encourage walking? The Government of Quebec recognizes in its Sustainable Mobility Policy that active transportation must be promoted. But his goals are very modest for walking.
In its 2018-2023 active transportation action plan, the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility (MTMD) notes that the modal share of walking in all trips “has been in decline for 10 years”. What target does he set for himself? He wants to maintain the modal share of walking. In other words, Quebec is simply hoping to stop the bleeding.
“We are sorry that the majority of the energy of the Sustainable Mobility Policy has been put into the electrification of transport, we have left aside efforts to transfer to active and collective modes,” says Sandrine Cabana- Degani, director of Piétons Québec.
She notes that the Quebec government does not have data on walking for its entire territory. To measure its progress, Quebec actually relies on data for Montreal, from the Origin-Destination Survey.
Quebec has also adopted several targets for active transportation in its 2018-2023 action plan. Very few were reached.
The Ministry of Transport thus wanted to “establish a working group on economic tools likely to promote accessibility to active transportation and its promotion within the population”. Questioned by The Pressthe Ministry indicates that this group was ultimately not created, “taking into account the context of the pandemic”.
We also rarely hear ministers praising walking or cycling, while the electric car is on everyone’s lips.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Sandrine Cabana-Degani, director of Piétons Québec
It gives me the impression that it’s not a mode that is taken seriously. It is certain that the distances that we are able to cover on foot are still short, so we do not see walking as an alternative to the car. But we forget that the distances we cover by car can often be covered on foot.
Sandrine Cabana-Degani, director of Piétons Québec
According to 2016 census data, half of Canadians who live less than 1 km from work get there by car; this proportion is 72% for those who live between 1 and 3 km from work.
Professor Jean-Pierre Després arrives at a very simple observation: even if the mayors of Quebec do not have the necessary budgets to implement public health tools, it is perhaps through them that the solution passes.
Active revolution, how do we do that? If it is not the provincial government that puts the science of prevention at the service of citizens, my dream is to form a coalition of citizens and communities, of mayors.
Jean-Pierre Després, professor in the kinesiology department at Laval University
“Take a coalition of cities that want to promote health, but who will give themselves the means to do the science of health promotion. I hope we will stop doing nonsense. »
PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
The neuropsychologist Louis Bherer
The neuropsychologist Louis Bherer, a great fan of walking, also notes that the promotion of active transport is mainly the business of cities at the moment.
“When we talk about physical activity and preventive health, it’s a societal choice,” believes Dr.r Bherer, who is a researcher at the Montreal Heart Institute research center. Preventing diseases, promoting health-promoting lifestyles, it’s not just for the individual to ask themselves, it’s for the whole of society around them. »
“When cities get on board and build sidewalks, paths, parks, it will encourage walking,” he notes. It’s a social choice that we all have to make together. »
Consult the study by Arthur Kramer and his team (in English)
Read “How to encourage walking? »