Excerpts — Promoting Physical Activity-2nd Edition

This is a review of national health objectives and recommendations for physical activity and presents current information on public health guidelines for physical activity for adults, including a description of the most current U.S. guidelines for physical activity, contained in the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans.

It is imperative that children and adolescents are encouraged to participate in a variety of activities that reflect their developmental stage and are also enjoyable—the latter being key to participation.

Community-wide campaigns involve many community sectors and partnerships, are large in scale and require high-intensity efforts with sustained high visibility, and use communication techniques to develop the physical activity campaign messages.

Successful programs recognize and take into account the individual variability among people, including their physical activity preferences, interests, and readiness to make behavior changes.

The target audience’s characteristics, attitudes, beliefs, values, behaviors, determinants, benefits, and barriers to behavior change should inform your strategy for interventions and programs.