Bonded Green Exercise: A One Health Framework for Shared Nature-Based Physical Activity in the Human-Dog Dyad

Area of Science:

• Integrative health
• One Health
• Human-animal interaction

Background:

• Modern lifestyles contribute to physical inactivity, social isolation, and digital addiction, negatively impacting human and canine health.
• Nature exposure, physical activity, and the human-animal bond (HAB) individually improve well-being but are rarely studied as an integrated triad.
• Existing evidence on these domains lacks a cohesive framework for synergistic health benefits.

Purpose of the Study:

• Introduce a conceptual framework for 'bonded green exercise': shared physical activity between humans and dogs in natural environments.
• Propose that bonded green exercise activates synergistic mechanisms for physiological, behavioral, and affective co-regulation.
• Synthesize evidence from human and canine sciences to support this integrated therapeutic model.

Main Methods:

• Conceptual framework development integrating existing research from human and canine sciences.
• Formulation of four testable hypotheses regarding triadic synergy, heterospecific benefits, behavioral amplification, and scalable health promotion.
• Literature synthesis across disciplines including exercise science, environmental psychology, veterinary medicine, and One Health.

Main Results:

• Proposed framework suggests bonded green exercise may offer greater benefits than additive effects of individual components (H1).
• Hypothesized parallel health gains in both humans and dogs (H2) and dogs acting as catalysts for human participation (H3).
• Identified bonded green exercise as a low-cost, accessible One Health approach with population-level potential (H4).

Conclusions:

• Bonded green exercise presents a novel, integrated model for enhancing physical, mental, and social well-being in humans and dogs.
• This approach leverages the human-animal bond and nature exposure to promote health, welfare, and ecological stewardship.
• The framework provides a foundation for future research and interventions aimed at improving cross-species health outcomes.