Approved Research

Making exercise easy - a study of factors that influence sustained exercise goals

Lay summary

Everybody knows that exercise and physical activity are important to physical and mental well-being. Yet, many of us are inactive.

The reasons for this are complex; physical attributes may limit the exercise we can do, motivation will limit the exercise we want to do, access to facilities can limit the exercise we are able to do, personality and experience can limit the enjoyment that we get from exercise.

In this project, we will use the UK Biobank dataset to model the effects of genes and environment upon achieved physical activity. The UK Biobank includes data from a large set of people and is broadly representative of the population across the UK. This model will help us to understand how different factors influence activity.