This here is a short video that has been circulating around this week which claims that nobody really needs a gym membership to be fit, and it is more about the Indian attitude towards exercise than the video. The case isn't unique, walk more, move more, eat sensibly and you'll be well on your way to being healthy without ever swiping a membership card. Who's listening is what has changed. When fitness has become a subtle status symbol on a monthly payment plan, climbing stairs and strolling to the market seems like an almost revolutionary move in a nation.

There is no controversy around the science behind the claim. For 20 years, scientists have been studying a phenomenon they define as non-exercise activity thermogenesis, or NEAT all the calories you burn when you're not sleeping, eating or exercising in a structured workout. Upright, running up and down stairs, getting food ready, carrying groceries, moving around your desk, etc.

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic, where the term was first used, have found that NEAT can range from 2,000 calories per day between two individuals of the same size and eating the same amount of food, just from incidental activity how much one person does versus another. Well, that's a bigger swing than most people can get in 40 minutes of gym class! The lesson to be learned is that the calories burned for weight maintenance are, in most cases, the calories you don't notice burning when you're not on the treadmill, sitting at your desk, getting some rest or cooking a meal.

Not all of this equates to the complete absence of the value of gyms. There are proven, tangible benefits that strength training offers in terms of bone density, metabolic benefits and injury prevention that cannot be fully matched by the daily chores, and supervised training assists persons who require structure and/or correction of form. However, the binary equation of fitness marketing be a member, or you're not doesn't match these statistics. The real secret to weight loss is a calorie deficit, and it doesn't matter where it is. It does put mind to work on what comes in and what comes out and there's a whole bunch of ways to get that out-column moving without spending a ton of money on dumbbells.

That is more true in India than anywhere else: India's current numbers are truly concerning. The fifth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) revealed that the prevalence of obesity among women had increased from about 21 percent to 24 percent in a few years, while among men it had jumped from 19 percent to 23 percent. It also showed that obesity among men in urban India is high, nearly 30 percent, compared to under 20 percent in rural India.

The figures are even more alarming in case of Delhi, where a total of more than 40 per cent of women and 38 per cent of men are in that category. The national figure may be even higher, though, when abdominal obesity is taken into account, with the Indian Council of Medical Research estimating that about a third of adults over the age of twenty have it. This is no lack of gyms. This is driven by the consumption of calorie-dense processed foods in the diet, the increasingly sedentary nature of work, and, this is seldom said aloud, the cheaper cost of eating poorly in India than eating well. Food security surveys have revealed that more than 50% of people were unable to eat nutritiously despite their efforts, and that waging a campaign of clean eating is not particularly useful.

But at the same time the fitness industry has never been sunnier. According to a market report by Deloitte India and the Health & Fitness Association in this month, the fitness industry in the country is estimated at approximately 16,200 crore rupees or $1.9 billion, rising by 15 per cent a year to roughly $4.5 billion by 2030. Value-format gyms already hold nearly close to 80% of the market in terms of membership and facilities, while boutique studios, which are more expensive and trendy, are the fastest to expand of all, with growth of nearly 19% per year.

But there is a Catch: Only around 12.3 million Indians have a gym or studio membership today that means just under one per cent of the adult population whereas a quarter of all Americans have a gym or studio membership. Deloitte's own analysts identified that almost 820 million Indians between eighteen and sixty-two are totally inactive. The industry is growing fast in absolute numbers and not much at all in terms of population that is in need of moving that's the difference it's trying to close with arguments that may have been intended on the viral video or not.

For anyone who works to improve their health instead of following fitness advice, there's a lesson in here. The practices that help the body become resilient in India, which involve walking to the market, climbing stairs, cooking from the kitchen, engaging with hands-on work, were free of cost and did not involve any subscription. They went away not because people lost interest in fitness, but because urban lifestyle made movement a rarity in the day.