Watching the Olympics probably made some people feel a little guilty   about not exercising.The truth is that, if physical inactivity were a sport, a lot of us could give a gold-medal performance.Or should we say non performance?          Public health experts say physical inactivity is the world's fourth leading cause of death. They estimate that inactivity plays a major part in six to ten percent of deaths from non-communicable diseases. These include conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and colon and breast cancer.          Min Lee at the Harvard School of Public Health worked with a team that studied inactivity. She says the findings are conservative   and may even underestimate the problem and that Physical inactivity is harmful to health, as harmful as far as deaths are concerned as smoking." So when we did our analysis, we looked at increased risk of disease after taking into account other health habits that might be associated with physical activity. For example, we know that if you are active, you probably smoke less. Additionally we factored out obesity, independent of the fact that active people also tend to weigh less.          The researchers compared data on physical inactivity with disease rates in one hundred twenty-two countries. They find high income countries are the most inactive around the world, but low to middle income countries are not going to be far behind as things change, as their economies improve and their people rely more on the improvements that basically engineer physical activity out of our daily lives.          It is not just telling someone to go out and be physically active, but how we rely on the transportation sector or how our cities or neighborhoods are designed, how crime can be minimized to help people become more physically active in their neighborhoods, simply walking to the store or walking down and being outside with friends and family and so on. These broader environmental issues are becoming much clearer in terms of their effects. When watching the Olympics, some people may feel sorry because of   _  .
their not joining in the competition their losing the Olympres medal their not doing physical exercisgs their not practicing as athletes