ABSTRACT
Walking is the most popular leisure activity in the UK and is considered to be appropriate exercise for maintaining physical health, for both men and women, of all ages (Kay and Moxham 1996; Morris and Hardman 1997; Fox and Rickards 2004; Curry et al. 2012). It is a fundamental part of human development (Solnit 2006), and is also felt, by participants, to be highly therapeutic (Robertson and Babic 2009), providing a range of physiological and psychological health benefits (Department of Health 2009; Roe and Aspinall 2011). These benefits are particularly important as people enter older age and their range of leisure pursuits declines (Freysinger and Ray 1994), yet, as a population we tend to walk less than we used to (Department of Health 2009), many healthy walking initiatives have failed (Curry et al. 2012), and more than half of the adults in England are not meeting the minimum recommendations for physical activity (HSCIC 2012). This is particularly the case for men, whose relative lack of engagement with walking is likely to be influenced by activity patterns and identities that are formed early in their lives and remain stable across their lives (Liechty and Genoe 2013).
