IF YOU DO ONE THING THIS WEEK . . . GET WALKING

The weather may still be making up its mind, but at least the evenings are getting brighter. So why not take advantage of the light and get out for a walk?

Studies show that building walking into your life can have long-term benefits. One in Australia tracked almost 600 people in middle age, looking at their daily number of steps in 2000 and in 2005.

It found that having a higher step count in 2005 than in 2000 was linked with having a lower body mass index, a healthier waist-to-hip ratio and better sensitivity to the hormone insulin. Those results were published earlier this year in the British Medical Journal.

Walking can even help stave off “inherited weight” (BMI values influenced by genetic factors), according to a study of more than 30,000 walkers in the US, which was published online in Preventive Medicine last month.