It may be a dog-eat-dog world, but our furry friends bring at least one important health benefit: getting more exercise. In news that will surprise few dog owners, researchers found that those with pet pooches are much more likely to meet weekly targets for time spent engaging in physical activity.
The UK government鈥檚 guidelines recommend that adults spend at least 150 minutes a week doing moderate-intensity activities, such as brisk walking or cycling. But only 66 per cent of men and 58 per cent of women in England achieve that benchmark.
Carri Westgarth at the University of Liverpool, UK, and her colleagues surveyed 385 households in north west England, which included 191 dog-owning adults, 455 adults without dogs, and 46 children. To check the accuracy of people鈥檚 self-reported figures, 28 of the adults also wore an accelerometer for a week to track their activity levels.
Advertisement
According to the self-reported data, 80 per cent of dog owners met the weekly physical activity target, compared with 62 per cent of non-dog owners.
More steps
The accelerometers showed that dog walkers clocked up 2000 more steps and 13 more minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity a day than non-dog owners.
Dog walking does not appear to replace other forms of exercise 鈥� in fact, dog owners are more likely to go running or jogging than non-dog owners.
The results show a bigger effect of having a dog on activity levels than other studies have found in the US and Australia. That might be because dog owners in warmer climates let their dogs roam freely outside, and don鈥檛 make as much of an effort to walk them.
In the UK, where bad weather often makes outdoor activities less enticing, having a dog may be the best way to encourage adults to exercise, says Westgarth. 鈥淚f the weather鈥檚 not good, people still dog walk.鈥�
Local councils should take this into account before banning dog walkers from public spaces, she says. 鈥淏y restricting people from walking dogs in areas local to them, they can demotivate walking.鈥�
There may be other health benefits of having a dog. Earlier studies have found that owning a dog and death.
For children, the more pets you live with as an infant, the lower your chance of getting allergies later in childhood.
Scientific Reports
