Global Health Risk Factors: Physical Inactivity
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2021
Abstract
Regular physical activity improves physical and mental health across all ages, and provides many social, environmental, and economic co-benefits. Physical activity includes all forms of active recreation, sports participation, cycling and walking for transportation, as well as activity undertaken at home or for work. Despite well-established benefits, one quarter of adults and three quarters of adolescents are not sufficiently active. The policy and practice of promoting physical activity integrates multidisciplinary knowledge from across clinical and social medicine, exercise science, health psychology, public health, transport, and environmental studies, to improve global health. With increasing recognition of its role in promoting better health and well-being, and supporting sustainable transport and development, physical activity is now at the intersect of key policy agendas of the twenty-first century. This chapter provides an overview of the scientific and public health policy developments within physical activity. It outlines the shifting agenda within global public health, once viewed as an issue of individual choice concerned mostly with sports and recreation, to the current understanding and policy positioning of physical activity as a core solution to preventing chronic disease, promoting health, and contributing to environmental sustainability.
Recommended Citation
Bull, F., Guthold, R., Friedman, D., & Katzmarzyk, P. (2021). Global Health Risk Factors: Physical Inactivity. Retrieved from https://repository.lsu.edu/pop_public_health_pubs/261