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In physical activity (PA) and exercise science, the prevailing view is that the health effect of PA is mainly determined by the accumulated rate of energy spent on PA over the day. Accordingly, generations of PA guidelines are based on the rate of energy spent during different tasks of PA, termed ‘metabolic equivalent tasks’ (abbreviated to ‘METs’) (see table 1). Accumulated daily METs (expressed in, for example, MET-hours or MET-minutes) are probably the most common in health-related measure of PA. But do daily METs really ‘tell the whole story’ of the health effects from PA?
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The report of the 2018 US Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee1 represents the most up-to-date guidance on physical activity and health. Despite multiple novel elements, these guidelines encompass (eg, influence of PA on sleep and fatigue) the thinking that all METs are the same, no matter the context they are accrued in, still remains. But the evidence behind ‘the more daily METs—the better’ is generally …