Lack of exercise in the UK

Apparently in the UK (where I live) 48 per cent of women and 42 per cent of men are too unfit to run for a bus. And 47 per cent of women felt they could run up to just half a mile, while one in five said they could only manage 100 metres.

From here:

The BHF called the figures 'worrying', warning heart and circulatory disease affects around seven million people in the UK and is responsible for around 155,000 deaths each year - an average of one person every three minutes.

It's not worrying, on the contrary, it's good news.

The figures for circulatory disease are a given. They exist for the lifestyles we have at the present moment. So, if we are to believe these figures, this includes many people who do little or no exercise. This would seem to suggest if most people attempt a moderate amount of exercise these figures might reduce.

On the other hand, if these figures existed despite most people doing moderate amounts of exercise, this would be more of a puzzle and the solution would be more complex.

The charity has launched a new fundraising campaign called MyMarathon, which urges the public to run the marathon distance of 26.2 miles over the course of a month.

That's just about a mile a day, which is totally unrealistic. People will just not do any exercise at all rather than do that. More realistic advice would be to run 0.5 miles (~1km) once every 5 days or so. People might keep that up over the long term.