‘Be Active, Be Healthy’ is the government's new strategy to get the nation’s couch potatoes off their sofas. We look at some of the key measures, and get tips on how to motivate ourselves to be more active from behaviour expert Judi James...

Obesity is responsible for 9,000 premature deaths each year in England, say health officials. Encouraging people to become more active is a key plank of the Change4Life campaign, which aims to bring about a ‘lifestyle revolution’ to tackle obesity.

According to Public Health Minister Dawn Primarolo, "Physical activity is the key to stopping this country becoming the obesity capital of the world."

She adds, "We have to remove the 'no, you can't' messages across communities to create a 'yes, you can' culture, with more support, more encouragement and more opportunities across communities to get people active."

Official figures show that more than 27 million adults in England are not getting enough exercise, and 14 million fail to complete 30 minutes a week. The Chief Medical Officer says that, if people who are currently sedentary did the recommended level of physical activity each week, around 9 per cent of deaths could be avoided, including more than one-third of deaths from coronary heart disease.

The official recommendation for adults is 30 minutes of ‘moderate’ physical activity, five days a week. ‘Moderate’ physical activity is exercise that increases the heart rate and causes us to feel slightly warm and breathe a bit heavier.

'Be active, be Healthy'

The government aims to get 2 million more people active by the time the Olympic Games comes to London in 2012. However, you don't have to be an Olympic athlete to enjoy sport and receive significant benefits to your health, says Minister for the Olympics Tessa Jowell: "By doing small amounts of physical activity, you can greatly improve your quality of life."

The ‘Be Active, Be Healthy’ plan outlines a range of physical activity and sports programmes to get more people active. Local councils and primary care trusts will be introducing a range of new initiatives to get local populations engaged in physical activities such as swimming, dancing, cycling and walking.

Key measures of the strategy include:

• a Learn to Swim programme for adults, which forms part of the government's Free Swimming scheme with the Amateur Swimming Association and Sport England, targeting non- or lapsed swimmers;
• a working group to explore how all generations can get active through dance –‘harnessing the Strictly Come Dancing fever that has swept the nation’;
• a total of 2,012 Active Challenge walking routes across England with Walk England to mark the 2012 Olympic and Paralympics Games;
• expansion of the Walking the Way to Health scheme, which supports over 538 local health walk schemes.

Local councils can provide details of ‘Be Active, Be Healthy’ initiatives and events in your own area, including the free swimming lessons for under-16s and adults aged 60 upwards that came into effect on April 1.

Get motivated!

With the recession putting pressure on our leisure budgets, many of us have more time on our hands, so it makes both economic and health sense to take advantage of free opportunities to get out and about in our local communities and have fun while getting fit.

According to Phil Gray, chief executive at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, "Finding a form of physical activity that's both enjoyable and convenient is key to increasing the amount of exercise people undertake in the long term. By improving opportunities and access to exercise locally, many more people should improve their fitness and health."

Judi James has some tips to help you find the willpower to start becoming more active, and motivational techniques to keep you going when your initial enthusiasm flags: