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The benefits of exercise actually usually outweigh harm from pollution in many developed cities, e.g. London: https://ig.ft.com/sites/urban-cycling/assets/pollu
by harg 9y ago
The benefits of exercise actually usually outweigh harm from pollution in many developed cities, e.g. London: https://ig.ft.com/sites/urban-cycling/assets/pollution-london-large.png https://ig.ft.com/sites/urban-cycling/assets/pollution-londo...
Of course if you live in a very polluted city the harm is much more pronounced: https://ig.ft.com/sites/urban-cycling/assets/pollution-world-large.png https://ig.ft.com/sites/urban-cycling/assets/pollution-world...
Source: https://ig.ft.com/sites/urban-cycling/ https://ig.ft.com/sites/urban-cycling/
- Retric 9y agoFine particulate pollution is the easiest to filter, but not the only harm from urban air. Many chemicals like NOx compounds, CO, etc are not healthy. Including increased accident risks, particulate, and chemical pollution together is a very different risk profile vs comparing all benefits vs a subset of downsides. That said, you can filter out most particulates and there is little reason not to take this precaution.
- pertymcpert 9y agoI read somewhere that being in a car doesn’t protect against it either, so if it’s a choice between driving and biking then biking is still better.
- Retric 9y agoExercise increases the body's need for oxygen > which increases the rate you breath in air > which increases exposure over the same time frame. Also, many cars include high quality air filtration which really does help. But again, just buy a mask and deal with the actual problem.
- pertymcpert 9y agoI assume the study I read about used moderns cars to test.