Family doctors are set to prescribe fitness classes, including dance, boxing and yoga, for depressed and diabetic women.
The sessions, designed by Sport England, will be piloted nationwide early next year.
It comes as research by the public body found that women say they have less time than men to be physically active, with more than 40 per cent saying they felt too tired to work out.
A quarter of female participants also listed work commitments and not feeling fit enough as other reasons for being less active.
For women who are depressed or diabetic, family doctors can prescribe exercise classes such as boxing, yoga and dance. These sessions were designed by Sport England and will be piloted across the country in early 2019.
The new fitness classes – called ‘This Girl Can’ – encourage participants to engage in a non-judgmental environment where they are encouraged to ‘do your worst’.
Doctors will be urged to enrol patients as a form of ‘social prescribing’ to meet non-medical needs that may be linked to conditions such as diabetes, depression or obesity.
Tim Hollingsworth, head of Sport England, told The Times: ‘Despite the enormous progress we have made with supporting more women to get active in recent years, the gender gap for activity stubbornly persists.
‘It’s never been more important. Getting active boosts mental and physical health, helps manage anxiety and stress, and creates social ties but millions of women are missing out on these benefits.’ Gina Johnson, 46, who attended a This Girl Can session in Beckenham, south London, said it was ‘different from any class I’ve done before’.
She said: ‘It feels like a modern version of an old-school aerobics class. It’s well thought out and there’s a real feel-good factor.’
Doctors will be urged to enrol patients as a form of ‘social prescribing’ to meet non-medical needs that may be linked to conditions such as diabetes, depression or obesity
Frances Drury from Sport England stated that it was important to have female-only classes because so many women are subjected to sexual harassment at the gym or outdoors.
She said: ‘What we want to convey is the joy of exercising in itself and then trying to tackle the fear and judgment barrier that we know women are more likely to experience when it comes to physical activity.’ Meanwhile, research has shown that walking 10,000 steps a day cuts the risk of heart disease.
The risk of developing life-threatening heart disease in volunteers who walk between 8500 and 10,000 steps per day was 35% lower than for those who only do 4,000 steps. These volunteers were also 40% less likely to be prematurely killed.
According to the findings of Southeast University, Nanjing in China, an increase of 500 steps per day reduced heart disease risk by 6 percent.
Millions of people now monitor their activity level every day with fitness trackers or smart phones to measure movement. This has resulted in an increase in the sales of these devices and other monitoring tools that can be used to determine how active they are.
The goal itself is not rooted in hard science but was dreamt up by marketing executives in Japan in the 1960s when they chose the name ‘Manpo-kei’ – 10,000 steps in Japanese – for a pedometer that was going on sale.
This latest study gathered data from over a dozen studies across the globe.
According to the Journal of Sport and Health results, there are benefits for those who take more exercise.
A report on the findings said: ‘A goal of 10,000 a day is widely advocated but with little evidence so far to support it. But our study shows it is becoming more and more important to public health.’