KEY POINTS:
Olivia Kronfeld could be the poster girl for inactivity. The 22-year-old Herald saleswoman is unrepentant about doing no exercise, and happy to take the car just about everywhere.
She sits in front of the telly the moment she gets home from work, and goes to the pub at least twice a week. She joins her friends in drinking sessions most weekends.
It's a good thing she eats well, as exercise doesn't figure in her plans. If she goes to the beach, it's by car, and taxis get her to the pub.
She claims to have tried doing exercise, but has come to the realisation "it is not really my thing. I never think about doing exercise, I go home and sit down".
Joining the gym was considered a year ago, "but it was too boring".
And, says Sport and Recreation New Zealand, Olivia is not alone.
Every week, 416,419 New Zealanders fail to get anything like enough exercise. They are the 12.7 per cent of the adult population that qualifies as inactive - performing less than 30 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity in a seven-day period.
South Auckland diabetes expert Brandon Orr-Walker says many physically inert people are setting themselves up for a world of hurt in later life.
While many of the 12 per cent considered physically inactive will be disabled and unable to exercise, the merely slothful could be in line for many significant chronic diseases, he says.
These maladies could range from premature cardiac disease - a risk from as young as 35 - to weight-related diabetes and gout. Joint degeneration is another possibility.
And being thin will not prevent a person from contracting diseases related to a sedentary lifestyle: osteoporosis is common in those who do little exercise.
