stair walking is obesity-associated: rate of ascending and descending the stairs at an underground train station in munich, germany

Daily stair walking is a time-efficient everyday activity that improves cardiorespiratory fitness, muscle strength, body composition, blood pressure, lipid profiles, and is associated with a reduction in all-cause mortality. however, more than one in three adult europeans is physically inactive in their everyday life and the exemplary current rate of stair walking in germany is not known. therefore, 2,521 people were monitored climbing the stairs or using a parallel escalator over a period of one week in an underground train station in munich, germany (january 3rd to 9th, 2022). 53.4% were women and 46.6% men, 30.7% (n = 774) were classified as obviously overweight-obese. 9.1% (n = 229) of all people counted used the ascending stairs - these were slightly more male than female and a total of 19 persons who were obviously overweight-obese. on two observation days, the pedestrians’ mode of descent (stairs/escalator) was also recorded on 457 people, of whom 28% (n = 128) were categorized as obviously overweight-obese. with an equal gender distribution, 27.8% (n = 127) of the people counted used the descending stairs, including 22 obviously overweight-obese people. a very small proportion of adults used the stairs in our exemplary sample (every eleventh chose the stairs for ascent and every fourth chose the stairs for descent), which confirms the high development potential for promoting short repetitive bouts of non-exercise physical activity in everyday life - also for overweight-obese people. internalize the mantra: stairs are good friends and not enemies!