We attended the UK Active Summit at the Congress Centre in London on the 7^th of November. UK Active are a not-for-profit organisation whose aim is to reduce the number of deaths in the UK that are a direct result of inactivity. Their slogan, ‘More People. More Active. More Often.’ gives a straight forward, no nonsense, explanation of what they are all about.

It was exciting to be in the presence of so many high profile members of parliament and leaders of from the industry, and couldn’t wait to hear what they had to say.

Chairman Fred Turok and Chief Executive David Stalker set the tone for the day. Both spoke very passionately and intelligently, and both highlighted how inactivity is a far bigger threat to the UK than obesity – the facts and figures were there for all to see, and if something isn’t done to make us all more active then by 2050 the health problems related to physical inactivity is forecast to cost the economy £50 billion – yet our current obsession with obesity is “skewing the debate and distracting us from the real silent killer of chronic inactivity”.

It was great to hear such important people highlighting these issues, and to have MPs agreeing to tackle the aforementioned issues seems to be a really positive step in the right direction.

We left with a spring in my step and a twinge of excitement that finally the powers that be are realising the importance of physical activity – preferably of the functional variety haha.