Physical Activity Promotion Interventions
Regular physical activity is generally
accepted as something you can do to enhanced your health
and improve your chances of living longer.
More than living longer, physical activity
has multiple health benefits, including reducing the
risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity,
selected cancers, and musculoskeletal conditions, all
of which can have grave affects on the quality of your
life.
Even with all the known benefits of regular
physical activity, only 25% of adults in the
United States report engaging in recommended physical
activity levels (see box); 29%
report no leisure-time regular physical activity; and
only 27% of students in grades 9--12 engage in
moderate-intensity physical activity. Reference:
BACKGROUND
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A federally-sponsored program
is underway to review the scientific literature covering
different ways to tackle public health problems on a
community-wide scale. These "Community
Guides" rate intervention strategies as "strongly
recommended", "recommended", or "insuffucuent
evidence".
In
promoting physical activity, the following strategies
are strongly recommended:
Communitywide
campaigns | Individually-adapted
programs | School-based
PE | Social
support interventions | Access
to places for physical activity
- Communitywide campaigns
These large-scale, highly visible, multicomponent
campaigns direct their messages to large audiences
using a variety of approaches, including television,
radio, newspapers, movie theaters, billboards, and
mailings. More
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- Individually-adapted health behavior
change programs
These programs are tailored to a person's specific
interests or readiness to make a change in physical
activity habits. Teaching behavioral skills such as
goal setting, building social support, self-rewards,
problem solving, and relapse prevention all assist
individuals in learning to incorporate physical activity
into their daily routines. More
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- School-based physical education
(PE)
This approach seeks to modify school curricula and
policies, and to increase the amount of time students
spend in moderate to vigorous activity while in physical
education class. Schools can accomplish this either
by increasing the amount of time spent in PE class,
or by increasing students' activity levels during
PE classes. More
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- Social support interventions in
community contexts
The goal of this approach is to increase physical
activity by creating or strengthening social networks.
Examples include exercise buddies, exercise contracts,
and walking groups. More
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- Creating or improving access to
places for physical activity combined with informational
outreach
This approach ensures that the physical environment
is conducive to physical activity, such that places
where people can be physically active are readily
available, accessible, and acceptable. Examples would
include attractive sidewalks, stairwells, walking
or biking trails, and exercise facilities in communities
or in the workplace. Informational outreach strives
to make people aware of available resources, encourages
them to take local action, or provides training, seminars,
counseling, or risk screening so that resources are
well used. The goal is to improve quality of life
and achieve livable communities. More
Info | Top of List
The Task Force on Community Preventive
Services recommended the following:
- Point-of-decision prompts
Motivational information is provided at the place
where an individual is likely to be making a choice
of action. For example, by locating signs close to
elevators and escalators, people are encouraged to
use safe and accessible stairs as a physically active
alternative to passive transport. more
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...about
the CDC's "Community Guide" program
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The Guide
to Community Preventive Services (Community
Guide) is a federally-sponsored initiative
documenting the effectiveness of various population-based
interventions. For each health topic selected,
an independent Task Force
on Community Preventive Services systematically
reviews published scientific studies, weighs the
evidence, and determines the effectiveness of
each intervention strategy by assigning it to
one of three categories:
- "Strongly Recommended"
- "Recommended,"
or
- "Insufficient Evidence."
Note, however, that insufficient evidence should
not be interpreted as ineffective, but
rather as requiring additional research in order
to strengthen the evidence.
For more information about
the Community Guide, click
here.
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