If You Are Serious About Getting Healthy Change One Thing!

We all want to get healthy, but at what cost. How far would you really go to get healthy? There is one thing you can do to help, but actually doing it might be tough.

Maybe it's time to ditch your car. People who ride their bike most places instead of driving their car weigh less -- almost nine pounds less, on average. That's the word from European researchers, who surveyed 11,000 people in seven European cities and found that cyclists are skinnier than drivers.

While this does not prove a direct link between one's choice of transportation and one's weight, it is an intriguing finding. To that end, the research team, led by Audrey de Nazelle from Imperial College London, will follow an additional 14,000 volunteers in London, Rome, Vienna, Zurich, Antwerp, Barcelona and Orebro to assess the relationship between their primary mode of transportation and their weight.

The project has a fun name: PASTA, which stands for Physical Activity Through Sustainable Transport Approaches. It is hoped that additional data collected over time will find a direct link between transportation decisions and health. Admittedly, much of this is determined by urban design.

The ease of walking or cycling in a city plays a vital role in whether people are realistically able to ditch their cars. Still, purposeful exercise -- walking to the grocery store or biking to work -- is an ideal way to tackle the epidemic of inactivity and obesity.

[via: Imperial College London]