Walking with a purpose, especially walking to work, makes a person walk faster that leads to several health benefits, says a new study.
According to the study published in the Journal of Transport and Health, it has been found that walking for different reasons yielded different levels of self-rated health.
“People who walked primarily to places like work and the grocery store from their homes reported better health than people who walked mostly for leisure,” the study said.
The researchers analysed self-reported health assessments from 125,885 adults between the ages of 18 and 64.
The respondents ranked how healthy they were on a scale of one to five.
It was found by the researchers that walking for any duration, for any purpose increased how healthy a person felt.
However, they also found that an additional 10 minutes of walking per trip from home for work-based trips – increased that person’s odds of having a higher health score by six per cent compared with people who walk for other reasons.
“People who walked from home for reasons not connected to work, shopping or recreation were three per cent more likely to have a higher health score,” the researchers said.
It was also found that walking trips that begin at home were generally longer than walking trips that begin somewhere else.
It was further found that 64 per cent of home-based walking trips last at least 10 minutes, while 50 per cent of trips that begin elsewhere are at least that long.