Elsevier

The Lancet

Volume 380, Issue 9838, 21–27 July 2012, Pages 247-257
The Lancet

Series
Global physical activity levels: surveillance progress, pitfalls, and prospects

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(12)60646-1Get rights and content

Summary

To implement effective non-communicable disease prevention programmes, policy makers need data for physical activity levels and trends. In this report, we describe physical activity levels worldwide with data for adults (15 years or older) from 122 countries and for adolescents (13–15-years-old) from 105 countries. Worldwide, 31·1% (95% CI 30·9–31·2) of adults are physically inactive, with proportions ranging from 17·0% (16·8–17·2) in southeast Asia to about 43% in the Americas and the eastern Mediterranean. Inactivity rises with age, is higher in women than in men, and is increased in high-income countries. The proportion of 13–15-year-olds doing fewer than 60 min of physical activity of moderate to vigorous intensity per day is 80·3% (80·1–80·5); boys are more active than are girls. Continued improvement in monitoring of physical activity would help to guide development of policies and programmes to increase activity levels and to reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases.

Section snippets

Physical activity in a changing world

Since the industrial revolution, the development of new technologies has enabled people to reduce the amount of physical labour needed to accomplish many tasks in their daily lives. As the availability of new devices has continued to increase, the effects on physical labour and human energy expenditure have grown to include many aspects of the lives of more and more people. The effects of some of these technologies on physical activity are obvious (eg, steam, gas, and electric engines; trains;

Self-reported physical activity in adults

We obtained comparable estimates for physical inactivity in adults (aged 15 years or older) from 122 countries with the WHO global health observatory data repository.12 The combined population of these 122 countries represents 88·9% of the world's population. For our analyses, physical inactivity was defined as not meeting any of three criteria: 30 min of moderate-intensity physical activity on at least 5 days every week, 20 min of vigorous-intensity physical activity on at least 3 days every

Trends in physical activity

Several behavioural and environmental factors, and megatrends (major forces in societal development that affect people's lives) affect population levels of physical activity.94 Rapid urbanisation, mechanisation, and increased use of motorised transport could have caused global changes in physical activity.95, 96 Examples of national surveillance systems that aim to assess trends in physical activity are scarce, most are fairly recent, and most are in high-income countries.

A systematic review21

Surveillance progress and gaps

Much progress has been made in the availability of national population-level data for physical activity in the past decade, particularly in adults. About two-thirds of all WHO Member States have at least some data for population levels of physical activity, which is a great surveillance achievement. Collectively, data now available for adult and adolescent populations provide a global picture of the pattern of participation and exposure to the risk of inactivity, and form the basis for national

Translation of knowledge into action

Our findings are troubling. Roughly three of every ten individuals aged 15 years or older—about 1·5 billion people—do not reach present physical activity recommendations.5, 14 The situation in adolescents is even more worrying, with a worldwide estimate that four of every five adolescents aged 13–15 years do not meet present guidelines. As summarised by Lee and colleagues,115 these individuals are at increased risk of coronary heart disease, diabetes, some types of cancer, several other

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