By Sophie Borland
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GPs should ask all patients how far they walk because it is more important to their health than either weight or blood pressure, say experts.
They warn that a lack of activity causes far more deaths than smoking, obesity or diabetes and urge family doctors to question patients on their exercise habits â" particularly walking â" and keep a record of them.
If patients admit to walking for fewer than 30 minutes a day they must be urged to do more.

Experts urge family doctors to question patients on their exercise habits and keep a record of them
The group of scientists from Canada, America and Australia believe that a lack of exercise leads to many cases of fatal cancers and heart disease.
However, activity can prevent hip fractures and there is evidence it may ward off dementia.
Professor Karim Khan, from the University of British Columbia said: 'Activity levels are the most important factor influencing our health.
'They are much more important than our blood pressure or how many times we breathe a minute.
'In the US more people die as a result of physical activity than smoking, obesity or diabetes. It's fitness not fatness.'
Professor Khan, whose study is published in the Lancet, said: 'Physical activity affects every system. Not getting enough can lead to a range of illnesses including cancers and diabetes.

Research has found a lack of activity causes far more deaths than smoking, obesity or diabetes
'You don't have to be an Olympian. If people take more than 150 minutes exercise a week, including walking, they probably don't need to worry about it.
'If they take less their doctor needs to be encouraging them to take more.'
Professor Khan said patients could fill in forms about their exercise levels in the waiting room to save GPs time during the appointment.
'Low fitness is a better predictor of mortality than obesity or hypertension, which are health risk factors afforded far greater emphasis than fitness by the media and most health professionals,' he added.
The researchers are recommending that doctors should record exercise along with patients' temperature, blood pressure, pulse, and breathing.
At present the Department of Health recommends that everyone takes at least two and a half hours exercise a week - or 30 minutes spanned over five days
Exercise is known to prevent certain cancers including breast and bowel. It also helps strengthen the bones, helping to prevent hip fractures, which often eventually lead to death.
* Doctors say patients with a growing waistline have a better chance of surviving heart failure than their thinner counterparts.
This could be because fatter patients had more reserves to fight disease. Another explanation might be that obese patients seek medical advice earlier because they are suffering other symptoms.
The US study of 3,000 patients showed that thinner individuals of both sexes were more than twice as likely to have died or needed surgery to shore up their failing heart after two years, says the American Journal of Cardiology.
However, doctors point out that acquiring the extra weight round our middles leaves us more likely to develop heart problems in the first place. Heart failure occurs when a heart, weakened by disease or an attack, struggles to pump blood round the body.
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Stupid idea. People lie. Scales don't.
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Plenty of exercise especially in the fresh air is vital to good health - but eating a healthy diet with plenty of fresh veg, fruit and salads and avoiding highly processed and junk food is also equally important.
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My wife suffers from MS and is in a wheelchair, so what is she supposed to do..??
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Lots of comment about BMI. I bet Serena Williams BMI is on the high side, but boy is she fit. - Norfolk dumpling, Great Yarmouth, 6/7/2012 16:21 According to the internet her BMI is 22. Besides do you believe in the paradigm that says that overweight people can't be fit and healthy and that all thin people are psysically fit and healthy? Fit is not the opposite of fat. But if you're going to call someone with a normal BMI 'fat' you've got problems nobody can solve. not an athlete. You missed my point. You can't tell someones fitness from either looking at them, or what their BMI is. I know some very unfit people who are slim, and some over weight people who are fit. Serena Williams as she appears on TV could not be described as slim, but is fit.
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Lots of comment about BMI. I bet Serena Williams BMI is on the high side, but boy is she fit. - Norfolk dumpling, Great Yarmouth, 6/7/2012 16:21 According to the internet her BMI is 22. Besides do you believe in the paradigm that says that overweight people can't be fit and healthy and that all thin people are psysically fit and healthy? Fit is not the opposite of fat. But if you're going to call someone with a normal BMI 'fat' you've got problems nobody can solve. not an athlete. You missed my point. You can't tell someones fitness from either looking at them, or what their BMI is. I know some very unfit people who are slim, and some over weight people who are fit. Serena Williams as she appears on TV could not be described as slim, but is fit.
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A lot of people in Britain would love to walk but are afraid of being mugged, raped or murdered.
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The 'GP' in the picture is a fake. He is a model, I have seen him in adverts for clothes in magazines and insurance on TV. That poor woman must be saved from this fake GP.
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Wonder if they'll ask a patient who turns up in their postman's uniform.
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I heard that years ago, Princess Grace of Monoco noticed one of her daughter's was putting on a bit of weight whilst at boarding school here in England. She paid someone to take her daughter out walking, for an hour each day. No diet change, just walking... SIMPLES!
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In the fifties and sixties none of my teenage friends had cars or excess money to buy junk food with, we walked everywhere and danced our socks off.The girls danced their bobbysocks off. Result- No fat kids and all as fit as fiddles.
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