The global issue of physical inactivity has been highlighted as pandemic in a series of five articles on physical activity in The Lancet’s recent special pre-Olympic issue.
The first paper, “Global physical activity levels: surveillance, progress, pitfalls and prospects” by Professor Fiona Bull and others, presents new estimates on current levels of physical activity and trends worldwide, alongside analyses that quantify the global impact of physical inactivity on the world's major non-communicable diseases.
The other articles also review why some people are active and why they are not, provide evidence-based strategies for effective physical activity promotion, and discuss how a multi-sector and systems-wide approach that goes way beyond health is critical to a worldwide increase in activity levels.
Worldwide, around a third of adults (about 1.5 billion people) and four out of five adolescents are failing to do recommended amounts of physical activity, placing them at 20-30 per cent greater risk of heart disease, diabetes, and some types of cancer. This Lancet series highlights an incomplete and unfocused response to physical inactivity in most countries, which has often been understaffed and underfunded, compared to other risk factors for non-communicable diseases.
Lancet 380 (9838) July 21, 2012 (Contact your library if
you cannot access the full text. Available via CIAP.)
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