It was not until the years between the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) and World War I (1914-1918) that physicians became proponents of exercise to promote good health. Their influence formed the basis for our present-day acceptance of the relationship between exercise and a more rewarding and healthier life.
Until now such teachings were based on inspiration and folk wisdom rather than the assembly of any evidence.
The study of physical activity and its relationship to health, didn’t begin until the middle years of the twentieth century , it all began in London in 1949 and centred around, of all things – London Bus’s!
The relationship between physical activity and health was not understood scientifically until Dr. Jeremy Morris (Professor of Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine of the University of London) began to study coronary heart disease in the late 1940’s.
At that time heart attacks were rapidly increasing in frequency, and the only hunch we had was that it could be related to occupation. It was more common in men than in women and as middle age advanced. Morris suggested that “men in physically active jobs suffer less coronary heart disease than comparable men in sedentary jobs.”
Morris’s study showed that the highly active conductors on London’s double-decker buses were at lower risk of CHD than the drivers, who sat through their shifts at the steering wheel! The ‘London bus study’ sparked the modern era of physical activity research.
Morris later reported a similar observation, that postmen delivering the mail on foot had lower rates of CHD than office workers and telephone operators.
That work was shortly followed, in the 1960s and 1970s, by the first of many studies by Dr. Ralph Paffenbarger, professor of medicine at Stanford University, who found that the risk of heart disease was inversely related to the amount of work done by San Fransisco longshoremen and the amount of leisure-time physical activity among Harvard graduates.
The impact of these men’s work was especially noteworthy at the time because physical activity was not yet considered to be an important influence on public health worthy of study.
Their work sparked interest around the world and similar observations were made with Finnish Lumberjacks (1962) and U.S. Railroad Workers (1969) in the 1960s.
Scientists for the first time wanted to look at the effect physical activity had on entire communities and a number of studies began to address the situation from a population and public health perspective.
Healthy Active 