What is it about?
This is a state-of-the-art review of historical developments, current approaches and recommended future directions in physical activity (PA) research, practice and policy. To progress in PA promotion, we need to move beyond health outcome and intervention evidence generation (e.g. focus on testing efficacy in highly controlled settings), to more complex, real world, politically informed, multi-sector, scale-up and policies, while concurrently collecting data to evaluate such efforts (e.g. natural experiments and evaluations of the policy process).
Featured Image
Photo by Tania Malréchauffé on Unsplash
Why is it important?
To get action on physical activity, we need to be more political. We need to think more politically about the way we frame what actions are needed. We need to enhance our understanding of political insights, approaches and tools to help influence decisions, policymakers and politicians
Perspectives
I hope this article makes physical activity researchers ponder a little. Perhaps thinking about what this means for their next grant idea, or intervention development, or media interview. We know we need actions that work in the real-world, not more band-aid solutions. I also think we need a shared voice. For example, if we asked 100 different tobacco control professionals what their top priority tobacco control action is in their country, would they align? Now let’s take physical activity. If we asked 100 different physical activity professionals what their top priority physical activity action is in their country, would they align?
Dr Matthew Mclaughlin
University of Western Australia
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Physical activity—the past, present and potential future: a state-of-the-art review, Health Promotion International, January 2025, Oxford University Press (OUP),
DOI: 10.1093/heapro/daae175.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
