We’ve always heard that exercising is the easiest and the surest way to stay fit and healthy. Well, that might not be always true, depending on where you live. According to a recent study, the damage caused to your health due to cycling in highly polluted areas might outweigh its advantages. In fact, you would be better off not cycling at all.
Researchers modeled the health effects of active travel and of air pollution by measuring air quality through average annual levels of PM2.5s. These are the tiny pollutant particles produced by dust storms, forest fires, motor vehicles, manufacturing, etc. and can embed themselves deep in the lungs.
They came up with the concept of “breakeven point”. It is the number of minutes that you can cycle/jog without it doing more harm than good to your health.
In some of the most polluted cities around the globe, such as Zabol, a city in Iran; or Gwalior, a city in India; you can cross the breakeven point in just 30 minutes. In simple terms, if you cycle or jog in some certain cities for more than half an hour, it would outweigh the usual health gains of cycling due to the long-term damage from inhaling fine particulates.
How Do Pakistani Cities fare?
They compiled a list of the cities with the worst PM2.5 levels, using data from WHO 2016. The list is almost completely dominated by Asian cities. It includes three Pakistani cities as well; namely, Karachi, Peshawar, and Rawalpindi.
via The Guardian
Tabhi Karachi Main Barish Nahi Hoti !
what about running or jogging or this data is just for cycling?
Any activity that makes you breath more than normal can be bad when there is so much air pollution .
Admin why did you block my other comment mentioning sources of pollution in Lahore and other cities? Don’t you want people to be aware of the level of pollution we have when compared to other cities?
People have the right to know how air pollution is causing many ailments that our nation is suffering.
Not sure why would you censor such information.
Thats one way of stopping freedom of speech :)
Jan day pie! Give some money to Amir and publish anything you want. Rooti bhi tu khani hai kah nai Amir nay. These days bloggers have taken same route as some of the main stream media.