Only one in four U.S. adults get the recommended amount of daily exercise, which is 30 minutes of moderate activity on most days of the week, or 20 minutes of vigorous activity three days per week.

Even worse: Nearly one in three Americans admits they don’t exercise at all.

The culprits? High-stress jobs and an abundance of sedentary distractions, such as cable television and the Internet, according to some experts.

Sandra Ham, a statistician with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), believes Americans see exercise as an inconvenience, an attitude which is closely linked to inactivity and obesity, which kills 180,000 Americans each year. And that number is rising.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, www.cdc.gov. Findings based on random telephone surveys conducted in 43 states between 1990 and 1998.