17 January is the day that most people’s New Year’s resolutions falter. In this show, Dr Dan and Jamieson talked about approaches to improving physical activity.

We discussed some of the arguably old-fashioned, somewhat paternalistic interventions, many of which are well-intentioned but fail to produce long-term results, such as Exercise on Prescription, or within Alberta schemes like Prescription To Get Active (if you are interested in learning about this scheme for Vegreville, Viking, Two Hills click here for more information).

In contrast is the the amazing grass-roots community based movement which has exploded in recent years and now operates at 38 locations in Canada: Park Run. In brief, it is a free, weekly timed 5km run/walk which is designed to be inclusive, and where your only real competition is with yourself!

Park Run has been shown to have long-term impacts on increasing physical activity, reducing weight, improving happiness and reducing stress!

We are big fans of Park Run at Doc Talk – click above to listen again, hear about the Park Run story (and maybe even set one up in your own backyard!).

Image by Kevin Wood [CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D