Walking is known to be beneficial for health yet fewer and fewer people are walking these days. What are the reasons for this? What can be done to tackle this problem?

Nowadays, walking as a physical

exercise

has been decreasing in popularity in spite of its advantages for physical and mental wellbeing.

This

is due to the lack of suitable places to

exercise

, and

this

situation can be solved by constructing parks and pathways dedicated to walking. Most of the major cities are crowded with

people

and buildings;

thus

, leaving no space to work out. Since walking

exercise

needs much space without distractions,

people

face multiple difficulties to perform it in overpopulated cities. As an example, the area I live in is the downtown of the city, Yangon, which is filled with busy traffic and businesses. As a consequence, I feel discouraged to go for a walk during my free time due to these obstacles. Government can alleviate

this

problem by building more public places and pedestrian pavements in the urban areas where a large number of

people

gather. These spots should be easily accessible from surrounding neighbourhoods and should have a large area

that is

sufficient enough to hold a great number of

people

without much disturbance. According to research from Griffith University,

people

are more motivated to do

exercise

, particularly walking, if they are provided with a peaceful and pleasant location near their houses. In conclusion, from strolling around to walking and jogging, these physical activities are not interesting enough for many

people

to perform them daily despite many beneficial effects for their health because there are not many available spaces for these actions;

however

, by building parks and allowing more public areas,

people

will become more enthusiastic to do these physical actions again.