Indians among laziest in world, walk barely 4,300 steps a day

Drive or walk? Given a choice, most Indians will opt for a car no matter how short the distance.Well, now a 46-country study has shown that we are among the laziest countries in the world. India is ranked 39, with people averaging just 4,297 steps a day. That's among the findings of a study by Stanford University researchers using step-counters installed in most smartphones to track the walking activity of about 700,000 people in 46 countries around the world.
The most active, according to the study published in the journal `Nature', are people in Hong Kong, who averaged 6,880 a steps a day .

The worst nation was Indonesia, where people walked about half as much as residents of Hong Kong, averaging 3,513 steps a day.

The worldwide average is 4,961 steps, with Americans, ranking at 30 in the study , walking an average 4,774 steps.

The top half of the chart includes Hong Kong, China, Ukraine and Japan, all walking over 6,000 steps daily , while the countries at the bottom of the rung are Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.



Data shows that Indian women walk even less than the men. While Indian women walk barely 3,684 steps, men have registered 4,606 daily. The study found that for both males and females, a larger number of steps recorded is associated with significantly lower obesity. For females, the prevalence of obesity increases more rapidly as step volume decreases (232% obesity increase for females versus 67% increase for males; comparing lowest versus highest activity).

Delhi-based dietician Ritika Samaddar suggests at least 10,000 steps a day to remain fit, “People feel that if they have walked for an hour in the morning, they have got their share of physical exercise. But you need to be active throughout the day."

So are Indians likely to be more obese than Chinese? Stanford researchers say in countries with less obesity people typically walked a similar amount every day . In nations with higher rates of obesity , there were larger gaps between those who walked a lot and those who walked very little.