NHS to Reward Walking: Common Sense or State Nannying?

The NHS is preparing to launch a scheme that will reward people for walking 30 minutes a day, a plan that raises an obvious question: since when did putting one foot in front of the other require a government incentive? The so-called 'marathon a month' challenge, due next year, will offer exercise rewards to participants who walk daily. The specifics remain conveniently vague. Yet ordinary Britons have been doing exactly this for generations, without needing the state to bribe them into it.

What is the NHS 'marathon a month' scheme?

NHS England plans to ask participants to walk roughly 30 minutes a day over the course of a month. Those who complete the challenge will become eligible for unspecified 'exercise rewards.' It is part of wider efforts to encourage physical activity across the population. Quite what these rewards will cost the taxpayer, and whether they will actually change behaviour, remains to be seen.

Why ordinary Britons walk without government bribes

While the NHS aims to boost exercise levels through incentives, hundreds of readers who contacted the BBC said their biggest motivators were better physical and mental health, time in nature, and simply making walking part of their daily routine. In other words, the things that have motivated people since long before Whitehall decided to intervene.

Their advice is striking in its simplicity. Ed Shirt, 25, from Prestatyn in Denbighshire, recommends fitting in the 30 minutes wherever possible and splitting it into chunks if that helps. 'Walk before work, on your lunch break or after dinner,' he says. 'You don't have to do all 30 minutes at once either. Three 10-minute walks throughout the day add up just the same.' He often sets a timer and picks a landmark to walk towards. 'There's something about the movement of walking that clears your mind. I love walking for my mental health.' His advice? Make walking part of a daily routine rather than treating it as a workout. Common sense, one might say.

Can everyday tasks count towards daily walking?

Georgia Blackwood, from Dudley in the West Midlands, builds walking into daily life by getting off the bus a couple of stops early and opting to walk rather than use public transport where she can. 'My town centre is about four stops away from me so I walk there, then I do my shopping and load my backpack and carry it back so I'm doing weights too.' No app required. No reward scheme needed. Just the kind of practical self-reliance this country was built on.

For 51-year-old Barry Nicholson, walking is easiest with a companion, particularly his energetic beagle Max. He walks Max for 45 minutes every day, come rain or shine, making the most of the parks and forests in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. 'Having a dog is one of the biggest tips. Once you know you've got the responsibility to keep him exercised, keep him entertained, then you have the motivation to go out.' Duty and responsibility as motivators. There is a lesson there.

What can older generations teach us about staying active?

Perhaps the most telling contributions come from those old enough to remember a time when walking was simply how you got about. Geoffrey Murrell, 82, and his wife Carole, also 82, reach at least 4,500 steps a day through everyday tasks. 'We don't have a car,' Geoffrey says. 'Anywhere we go, we walk. We're on legs!' The couple walk into Bedford for food shopping or catch a bus to Milton Keynes. Geoffrey, who is receiving treatment for bladder cancer and has diabetes, sometimes walks even further to attend hospital appointments. No fanfare. No reward scheme. Just quiet fortitude.

Violet Black, 80, from Edinburgh, started walking when she retired at 61 and now covers five miles every day, except in snow and icy conditions. 'Anyone who struggles being on their own, you never feel worse for going out walking,' she advises. She is constantly told she looks years younger, though she modestly adds that her mirror does not always agree.

Sophie O'Sheen, 31, from Maidstone, Kent, walks two and a half miles to work each day. 'Walking is a great way for me to decompress before and after work and also speak on the phone to my family whilst doing some form of exercise.' It gives her headspace. 'We're so busy these days in this modern age, you don't get that time just to yourself.'

Is technology helping or hindering the walking habit?

Daphnyan Gordon, from Craigavon in County Armagh, uses a walking pad at home when the weather puts her off going outdoors. 'It takes the excuse away to be sedentary so you don't have a reason not to walk. You can put your favourite show on and walk for the duration, sometimes an hour.' A sensible compromise, though one cannot help observing that previous generations simply put on a coat and went out regardless.

The real lesson the NHS should learn

The pattern is clear. Those who walk regularly do so not because they were bribed, but because they built it into their routine, found a sense of duty in it, or simply recognised that their own health is their own responsibility. The NHS would do better to promote that message of personal responsibility than to dangle rewards before a population that somehow managed to walk for centuries without them. As so often, the British people are ahead of the bureaucrats.

Does the NHS walking reward scheme offer value for money?

That remains the critical question. With NHS waiting lists at record lengths and the service under unprecedented strain, spending money on incentives for something people can and should do off their own bat is, at the very least, debatable. The readers' tips prove that motivation comes from within, from habit, from duty, and from the simple pleasures of a walk in the countryside or a stroll along the river. No government scheme required.