World Health Organization 2020 guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour - PubMed (original) (raw)

Practice Guideline

. 2020 Dec;54(24):1451-1462.

doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2020-102955.

Salih S Al-Ansari 3, Stuart Biddle 4, Katja Borodulin 5 6, Matthew P Buman 7, Greet Cardon 8, Catherine Carty 9 10, Jean-Philippe Chaput 11, Sebastien Chastin 12, Roger Chou 13, Paddy C Dempsey 14 15, Loretta DiPietro 16, Ulf Ekelund 17 18, Joseph Firth 19 20, Christine M Friedenreich 21, Leandro Garcia 22, Muthoni Gichu 23, Russell Jago 24, Peter T Katzmarzyk 25, Estelle Lambert 26, Michael Leitzmann 27, Karen Milton 28, Francisco B Ortega 29, Chathuranga Ranasinghe 30, Emmanuel Stamatakis 31, Anne Tiedemann 32, Richard P Troiano 33, Hidde P van der Ploeg 34 35, Vicky Wari 36, Juana F Willumsen 37

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Practice Guideline

World Health Organization 2020 guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour

Fiona C Bull et al. Br J Sports Med. 2020 Dec.

Abstract

Objectives: To describe new WHO 2020 guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour.

Methods: The guidelines were developed in accordance with WHO protocols. An expert Guideline Development Group reviewed evidence to assess associations between physical activity and sedentary behaviour for an agreed set of health outcomes and population groups. The assessment used and systematically updated recent relevant systematic reviews; new primary reviews addressed additional health outcomes or subpopulations.

Results: The new guidelines address children, adolescents, adults, older adults and include new specific recommendations for pregnant and postpartum women and people living with chronic conditions or disability. All adults should undertake 150-300 min of moderate-intensity, or 75-150 min of vigorous-intensity physical activity, or some equivalent combination of moderate-intensity and vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity, per week. Among children and adolescents, an average of 60 min/day of moderate-to-vigorous intensity aerobic physical activity across the week provides health benefits. The guidelines recommend regular muscle-strengthening activity for all age groups. Additionally, reducing sedentary behaviours is recommended across all age groups and abilities, although evidence was insufficient to quantify a sedentary behaviour threshold.

Conclusion: These 2020 WHO guidelines update previous WHO recommendations released in 2010. They reaffirm messages that some physical activity is better than none, that more physical activity is better for optimal health outcomes and provide a new recommendation on reducing sedentary behaviours. These guidelines highlight the importance of regularly undertaking both aerobic and muscle strengthening activities and for the first time, there are specific recommendations for specific populations including for pregnant and postpartum women and people living with chronic conditions or disability. These guidelines should be used to inform national health policies aligned with the WHO Global Action Plan on Physical Activity 2018-2030 and to strengthen surveillance systems that track progress towards national and global targets.

Keywords: health promotion; non-communicable disease; physical activity; prevention; public health.

© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

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