Pedestrians choose healthy obstacles over boring pavements

Collage imagining a challenging 'Active Urbanism' route applied to Sermon Lane in London Credit: Anna Boldina Up to 78% of walkers would take a more challenging route featuring obstacles such as balancing beams, steppingstones and high steps, research has found. The findings suggest that providing -Active Landscape- routes in urban areas could help tackle an -inactivity pandemic- and improve health outcomes. Pedestrians can be nudged into a wider range of physical activities through minor changes to the urban landscape Anna Boldina Millions of people in the UK are failing to meet recommended targets for physical activity. Exercising -on the go- is key to changing this but while walking along a pavement is better than nothing it causes no significant increase in heart rate so only qualifies as mild exercise. Walking also fails to significantly improve balance or bone density, unless it includes jumping, balancing, and stepping down. But would adults opt for such -fun- routes if given the choice? A University of Cambridge-led study published today in the journal Landscape Research suggests that with the right design, most would. Previous research on -healthy route choices- has focused on people's likelihood of walking instead of using transport.