Getting to the heart of the matter

The relationship between physical fitness, physical activity and cardiovascular health has been a keen topic of research and political nuance since the 1960s. The late US President John F Kennedy was in fact one of the first world leaders to recognise the importance of structured exercise to individual and population physical and mental wellbeing. If his comments are as relevant today as they were in the 1960s, the policy measures he adopted were visionary and arguably superior to anything we see in the modern era.